WOODROW    WILSON 


WOODROW  WILSON 

THE  STORY  OF  HIS  LIFE 

BY 
WILLIAM  BAYARD   HALE 

Author  of 
"A  Week  in  the  White  House  with  Theodore  Roosevelt' 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1912 


£^f 


ALL  KIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUBING  THAT  OP  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,  igu,  1912,  BY  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  AND  COMPANY 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I.—  Background  and  Boyhood  .......  3 

II.  —  Boyhood  in  Georgia   .......  ^v.  .  23 

III.—  Off  to  College  ..........  /.  .  .  .  43 

IV.—  A  Student  at  Princeton    .  ..  ,V.  .  *  .  54 


V—  Still  Studying  Law  and  Politics  .'.  '.  . 
VI.—  "Professor"  Wilson  ......  .'  T  .  .  %  '  96 

VII.  —  Princeton's  New  President,.  ..  .  ..-,  .  .  112 

VIII.  —  Democracy  or  Aristocracy*?    .  .  ....  .  .  122 

IX.—  The  Graduate  College  Contest  .....  139 

X,  —  Out  of  Princeton  into  Politics   .....   160 

XI.  —  One  Year  of  a  Progressive  Governor  .  .   185 
XII.—  The  Presidency  L<*>ms  Up  .......  214 

^  s     •    '         '"•• 


247994 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
WOODROW  WILSON  .......    Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

JUDGE  JAMES  WILSON 20 

THE  REV.  DR.  THOMAS  WOODROW  .....  20 

WILLIAM  DUANE  WILSON  ........  20 

THE  REV.  DR.  JOSEPH  RUGGLES  WILSON     .     .  20 

THE  MANSE,  STAUNTON,  VA.,  WHERE  WOODROW 
WILSON  WAS  BORN 104 

THE    HOUSE   DESIGNED   BY   MRS.   WOODROW 

WILSON  AT  PRINCETON 104 

GOVERNOR  WILSON  AND  His  FAMILY  .  192 


WOODROW  WILSON 


WOODROW  WILSON 

CHAPTER  I 

BACKGROUND    AND    BOYHOOD 

IT  WAS  four  years  more  than  a  century  ago 
that  a  restless  youth  of  twenty,  to  whose 
ears  had  come  amazing  stories  of  the  oppor 
tunities  to  be  found  in  a  new  land,  forsook  the 
home  of  his  Scots-Irish  fathers  in  County  Down, 
on  the  Irish  shores  of  the  windy  North  Channel, 
and  sailed  forth  toward  the  baths  of  the  Western 
stars.  Perhaps  he  had  heard  of  the  fame  of  a 
Scotsman  of  his  own  name  and  without  doubt 
his  own  kin  who,  having  migrated  to  America 
only  a  generation  before,  had  become  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  new  nation,  one  of  the  signers  of 
its  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  member  of 
its  Constitutional  Convention,  and  a  Justice 

of  its  first  Supreme  Court.     At  all  events,  it 

s 


4  WOODROW  WILSON 

was  on  a  ship  bound  for  the  city  of  Justice  James 
Wilson  that  young  James  Wilson  sailed. 

The  later  emigrant  may  have  been  destined 
to  no  such  eminence  as  was  the  earlier,  yet  young 
James,  too,  found  his  opportunity  in  the  new 
country  —  found  it  in  a  little  shop  full  of  the 
smell  of  printer's  ink  and  'mysterious  with  the 
apparatus  of  the  ^preservative  art  —  the  shop 
at  15  Franklin  Court,  formerly  the  home  of 
Benjamin  Franklin,  whence  issued,  to  the  en 
lightenment  of  the  good  people  of  Philadelphia, 
William  Duane's  daily  paper,  the  Aurora. 

To  their  enlightenment,  it  is  to  be  hoped; 
certainly  very  much  to  their  entertainment  and 
their  agitation  —  and  not  only  theirs,  but  the 
whole  country's  as  well.  William  Duane  was 
the  earliest  muck-raker  in  American  journalism; 
indeed,  he  was  muck-raking  on  the  other  side 
of  the  world  before  he  had  a  chance  to  employ 
Bunyan's  celebrated  tool  here.  Though  born 
on  the  shores  of  Lake  Champlain,  Duane  was 
educated  in  Ireland,  whence  he  went  out  to 
India  and  started  a  newspaper  much  occupied 
with  arraigning  the  British  Government  — 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD          5 

which  the  Government  very  sensibly  seized  and 
whose  editor  they  ordered  out  of  the  country. 
Returning  to  Great  Britain,  he  became  par 
liamentary  reporter  to  London  papers,  including 
the  Times.  So  he  was  pretty  well  equipped  to 
make  trouble  when,  in  1795,  he  came  back  to 
the  country  of  his  birth  and  engaged  himself 
with  Franklin  Bache  (grandson  of  the  most 
famous  of  all  Philadelphia  printers,  and  son  of 
Richard  Bache,  the  Postmaster-General)  on  the 
Aurora.  Bache  dying  of  the  yellow  fever, 
Duane  took  over  the  widow  —  and  the  Aurora. 
It  was  already  a  leading  Democratic  journal, 
Philadelphia  being  then  the  national  capital. 
Duane  made  it  the  chief  organ  of  the  party. 
His  were  the  shrieking  methods  of  the  yellowest 
day  journalism  has  ever  seen,  and  within  a  year 
he  had  been  haled  before  Congress  for  a  viola 
tion  of  the  Sedition  Law.  However,  he  did  a 
great  deal  toward  electing  Jefferson  to  the 
Presidency  and  putting  the  Democrats  in  powrer, 
and  even  after  he  had  turned  into  a  bitter  as 
sailant  of  President  Madison  and  had  come  to 
be  regarded  as  an  opposition  editor,  we  find 


6  WOODROW  WILSON 

Jefferson  writing  him  (1811),  calling  him  "Col- 
oriel"  William  Duane: 

The  zeal,  the  disinterestedness,  and  the  abilities  with 
which  you  have  supported  the  great  principles  of  our 
revolution,  the  persecutions  you  have  suffered,  and  the1 
firmness  and  independence  with  which  you  have  suffered 
them,  constitute  too  strong  a  claim  on  the  good  wishes 
of  every  friend  of  elective  government,  to  be  effaced  by  a 
solitary  case  of  difference  in  opinion. 

William  Duane  never  got  any  political  reward, 
but  his  son  %was  made  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
by  President  Jackson.  He  served  only  a  few 
months,  refusing  to  obey  Jackson's  order  to 
remove  the  Government  deposits  from  the  United 
States  Bank  without  authority  of  Congress. 

Duane  was  in  financial  difficulties  most  of 
the  time,  but  he  stuck  it  out  until  1822,  when 
the  country  had  settled  down  into  an  "era  of 
good  feeling"  so  paradisiacal  that  there  was 
nothing  for  a  fighting  journalist  of  Irish  educa 
tion  to  do  in  the  United  States.  So  he  closed 
out  the  Aurora  and  went  on  a  tour  of  South 
America,  then  in  the  throes  of  revolution. 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD  7 

Such  was  the  employer  from  whom  young 
Jimmie  Wilson  got  his  first  notions  of  American 
life.  Wilson  appears  to  have  taken  aptly  to  the 
printing  trade,  and  to  his  employer,  as  his  em 
ployer  did  to  him.  The  young  man  prospered. 
He  moved  from  a  room  in  the  rear  of  Fourth 
Street,  which  he  had  taken  on  landing,  to  45 
Gaskill  Street.  And  he  married  —  married 
Anne  Adams,  an  Irish  girl,  four  years  his  junior, 
who  had  come  over  on  the  ship  that  brought 
him.  To  her  latest  days  she  used  to  love  to 
talk  of  their  North  of  Ireland  home,  from  which 
she  said  they  could  see  the  white  linen  flying 
on  the  line  in  Scotland;  so  she  must  have  been  a 
County  Down  or  a  County  Antrim  lass.  There 
was  more  than  the  glint  of  wind-blown  linen  that 
came  across  to  them  from  Scotland,  for  James 
Wilson's  wife  was  a  blue-stocking  of  a  Pres 
byterian  to  the  day  of  her  death,  and  brought 
up  her  ten  children  in  the  nurture  and  admoni 
tion  of  the  Lord  in  the  strictest  sect  of  Pres- 
byterianism.  They  began  life  together,  No 
vember  1, 1808,  by  going  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  George 
C.  Potts,  pastor  of  the  Fourth  Presbyterian 


8  WOODROW  WILSON 

Church,  to  be  married.  When  their  first  child 
was  born,  they  called  him  "William  Duane." 
That  year  they  moved  up  town  to  the  corner  of 
Tenth  and  Spruce  streets;  it  must  have  been 
either  the  northeast  or  the  northwest  corner. 

Wilson  now  became  nominally  publisher  of 
the  Aurora.  Duane,  when  the  WTar  of  1812 
broke  out,  was  made  Adjutant-General  of  the 
Eastern  District  of  Pennsylvania,  and  it  seems 
that  he  left  the  management  of  the  paper  to 
Wilson. 

With  the  Peace  of  Ghent,  a  new  movement 
westward  set  in.  The  Federal  Government  was 
pushing  the  National  Road  over  the  Alleghanies 
on  the  first  stage  of  its  journey  to  the  plains. 
The  steamboat,  which  had  appeared  on  the 
Hudson  in  1808,  was  now  screeching  on  the 
Ohio.  Wilson  determined  to  try  his  fortunes 
in  the  hinterland.  He  went  to  Pittsburg,  just 
growing  into  a  city.  Then  his  fancy  was  taken 
by  the  little  town  of  Lisbon,  just  across  the  line 
in  the  new  state  of  Ohio;  but  soon  he  found  a 
better  location  in  Steubenville,  a  little  below, 
on  the  river,  county  seat  of  Jefferson,  nobly 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD          9 

named.  Here  he  started  a  paper  of  his  own  — 
the  Western  Herald  it  was  called  —  and  it  was 
destined  to  a  long  and  measurably  influential 
career. 

Behold,  then,  at  the  close  of  the  first  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  immigrant  James 
Wilson  a  settled  citizen  of  the  state  of  Ohio, 
influential,  prosperous,  and  at  the  head  of  a 
thriving  family. 

James  Wilson,  first  and  last,  must  be  held 
responsible  for  a  goodly  portion  of  the  printed 
wisdom  and  folly  of  the  early  nineteenth  century. 
He  printed  in  Philadelphia;  he  founded  a  news 
paper  in  Steubenville,  and  in  its  office  he  trained 
every  one  of  his  seven  sons  to  be  an  expert  com 
positor;  in  1832  he  founded  a  paper  at  Pittsburg 
-  the  Pennsylvania  Advocate.  The  first  number 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Advocate  was  printed  in 
Ohio,  at  the  Steubenville  press.  Very  soon, 
however,  a  fine  Washington  hand-press  was 
installed  in  a  Pittsburg  office,  to  the  wonder  of 
the  city,  for  it  was  the  first  press  set  up  west  of 
the  mountains  that  was  capable  of  printing  a 
double-page  form  of  a  newspaper  at  one  impres- 


10  WOODROW  WILSON 

sion  —  that  is,  one  side  of  a  whole  sheet  at  once. 
Mr.  Wilson  started  the  Advocate  with  the  aid 
of  four  of  his  sons  and  two  apprentice  boys,  but 
when  it  was  fairly  on  its  feet  he  left  it  in  the 
immediate  charge  of  his  eldest  son. 

During  the  remaining  twenty-five  years  of 
his  life  James  Wilson,  an  editor  to  the  end, 
divided  his  time  between  Steubenville  and 
Pittsburg. 

James  Wilson  was  a  man  of  extraordinarily 
positive  opinions;  furthermore,  he  was  very  out 
spoken  in  them.  His  paper  was  a  very  vigor 
ous  publication  indeed,  discussing  the  questions 
of  the  day  —  and  they  had  pretty  big  questions 
in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  - 
with  fearless  conviction  and  bluntness.  The 
editor  was  a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  and  was 
ordinarily  addressed  as  "Judge"  Wilson.  He 
was,  for  a  term,  a  member  of  the  Ohio  State 
Legislature.  During  his  absence  at  Columbus 
his  wife,  with  the  aid  of  the  sons,  edited  the 
paper  and  boarded  the  hands. 

One  of  Wilson's  political  aversions  was  the 
person  of  Samuel  Medary,  a  frequent  candidate 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD         11 

for  public  office.  The  Western  Herald  habitually 
referred  to  him  as  "Sammedary"  —though 
exactly  why,  no  one  remembers.  A  sample  of 
the  Judge's  caustic  remarks  about  this  candi 
date  was: 

"Sammedary's  friends  claim  for  him  the 
merit  of  having  been  born  in  Ohio.  So  was  my 
dog  Towser." 

Samuel  Medary  afterward  became  Governor 
of  Ohio,  and  (ironically  enough)  it  came  about 
that  Judge  Wilson's  son  Henry  married  the 
Governor's  daughter.  The  old  Judge  attended 
the  wedding,  and  there  were  greetings  amicable, 
but  possibly  not  of  unrestrained  cordiality, 
between  the  ancient  antagonists.  Judge  Wilson 
died  in  Pittsburg  during  a  cholera  epidemic, 
in  1837. 

Judge  James  Wilson  had  ten  children:  seven 
boys  and  three  girls.  The  daughters  married 
well,  and  the  sons  all  attained  considerable 
distinction.  Henry,  Edwin,  and  Margretta 
were  triplets.  Henry  (he  who  married  Gover 
nor  Medary's  daughter)  became,  during  the 
Civil  War,  Commissary-General  on  the  staff  of 


12  WOODROW  WILSON 

General  Burnside,  stationed  at  St.  Louis.  Edwin 
studied  law  with  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  at  Steuben- 
ville,  practised  law  at  Franklin,  Pa.,  and  became 
Adjutant-General  of  Pennsylvania  under  Gov 
ernor  William  F.  Packer. 

Edwin  and  Henry  bore  a  remarkable  resem 
blance  to  each  other;  throughout  their  lives  the 
two  men  were  so  much  alike  that  few  outside 
the  family  could  distinguish  one  from  the  other. 
Once,  Governor  Packer  happened  to  meet  Henry 
at  the  Girard  House  in  Philadelphia,  and  thinking 
all  the  time  he  was  with  his  Adjutant-General, 
Edwin,  spent  several  days  with  him.  On  the 
other  hand,  once,  when  Edwin  was  at  the  old  St. 
Nicholas  Hotel  in  New  York,  General  Burnside 
came  along  and  proceeded  to  administer  a 
reprimand  to  the  officer  whom  he  took  to  be 
his  Commissary-General  for  having  left  head 
quarters  without  leave.  Edwin  let  Burnside 
exhaust  himself,  and  then  asked: 

"General,  when  did  you  see  me  last!'* 

Burnside  replied:  "Why,  I  left  you  at  St. 
Louis,  last  week." 

Edwin  retorted:  "You  are  mistaken." 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD         13 

"Aren't  you  General  Wilson?"  asked  Burn- 
side. 

"I  am  so  called,"  replied  Edwin,  "but  I  am 
very  thankful  that  I  am  not  your  Commissary- 
General." 

Before  Burnside  could  be  persuaded  of  his 
mistake,  a  visit  had  to  be  made  to  the  hotel 
register;  the  writing  of  the  two  men  was  totally 
unlike,  and  Burnside  was  familiar  with  the  hand 
of  Gen.  Henry  Wilson.  General  Henry  and 
General  Edwin  distinguished  themselves  to 
their  acquaintances  by  the  manner  in  which 
they  wore  their  watch  guards:  Henry  wore  a 
chain  about  his  neck,  while  Edwin  wore  a  fob. 

One  of  the  earliest  photographs  made  in 
Columbus  was  a  portrait  of  Gen.  Henry  Wilson. 
Henry  sent  it  to  General  Edwin,  at  Harrisburg, 
and  he,  by  way  of  practical  joke,  sent  it  home 
to  his  wife,  as  a  likeness  of  himself.  Mrs. 
Wilson  hung  it  on  the  parlor  wall  and  proudly 
called  the  attention  of  callers  to  the  excellent 
photograph  of  her  husband. 

Judge    Wilson's    youngest    son    was    Joseph 


14  WOODROW  WILSON 

Ruggles  —  through  whom  runs  the  special  cur 
rent  of  this  story. 

Joseph  was  born  at  Steubenville  on  February 
28,  1822;  he  got  his  first  schooling  in  his  father's 
shop.  Like  all  the  other  sons,  he  learned  the 
printer's  trade  —  not  one  of  them  but  could,  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  "stick  type"  with  any 
journeyman. 

It  is  recorded  of  Edwin  Wilson  that,  later  in 
life,  he  made  a  wager  with  the  proprietor  of  the 
Venango  Spectator  that  he  could  set  the  longest 
"string  of  type  in  an  hour."  At  it  they  went, 
and  the  General  was  an  easy  winner  —  and  he 
was  not  the  fastest  "sticker"  in  the  family, 
either.  Joseph  was  allowed,  as  a  boy,  to  get 
out  a  little  paper  of  his  own  from  the  Western 
Herald  office. 

Joseph,  from  the  start,  was  marked  for  the 
scholar  of  the  family.  There  was  a  good 
academy  at  Steubenville,  and  he  attended  it. 
At  eighteen  he  went  to  Jefferson  College,  a 
Presbyterian  institution  at  Canonsburg,  Pa. 
(now  merged  in  Washington  and  Jefferson 
College),  where  he  was  graduated  in  1844  as 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD         15 

valedictorian.  He  engaged  in  teaching  for  a 
year,  taking  charge  of  an  academy  at  Mercer, 
Pa.  But  the  call  was  clear  to  a  higher  life  work. 
Before  he  had  left  home  for  college  he  had  made 
a  public  profession  of  his  faith  in  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church  of  his  native  town.  Now 
he  took  his  way  to  the  Western  Theological 
Seminary,  at  Allegheny,  Pa.,  remained  a  year, 
and  then  went  to  spend  another  year  at  Prince 
ton  Seminary.  He  went  home,  and  was  licensed 
to  preach,  although  not  yet  ordained;  he  taught 
for  two  years  in  the  Steubenville  Male  Academy. 
To  the  fact  that  there  was  another  Steuben 
ville  academy  is  due  the  necessity  of  telling  this 
story.  There  was  another,  not  for  males,  and 
to  it  there  came,  among  other  girls  of  the  Ohio 
Valley,  a  damsel  from  Chillicothe,  the  pretty 
town  which  was  Ohio's  first  capital,  lying  be 
tween  the  pleasing  hills  behind  which  the  sun 
still  rises  on  the  state  seal.  Janet  Woodrow 
was  her  name,  though  most  people  called  her 
"Jessie,"  and  she  was  the  daughter  of  a  great 
and  famous  Presbyterian  minister  of  the  day, 
but  neither  did  that  nor  her  English  birth  forbid 


16  WOODROW  WILSON 

her  having  a  gleeful  laugh  and  an  eye  for  fun. 
One  afternoon,  the  lessons  at  Doctor  Beattie's 
school  being  over,  Janet  Woodrow  took  a  walk; 
passing  by  the  Wilson  house,  she  spied,  through 
the  pickets  of  the  garden  fence,  the  young  theo- 
log,  raking,  in  a  pair  of  kid  gloves.  On  the 
7th  day  of  June,  1849,  Joseph  R.  Wilson  and 
Janet  Woodrow  were  legally  joined  in  marriage 
by  Thomas  Woodrow,  minister  of  the  Gospel 
—  so  attests  an  entry  preserved  in  the  marriage 
records  of  the  Probate  Court  of  Ross  County, 
Vol.  F.,  page  91. 

We  have  another  immigration  to  observe: 
The  Woodrows  (or  Wodrows,  as  they  spelled  it 
in  Scotland)  are  an  ancient  family  originally 
out  of  England,  who  trace  their  Scottish  history 
back  600  years.  Among  them  flourished  min 
isters,  scholars,  and  men  of  substance,  with 
a  Presbyterian  martyr  or  two.  The  Rev.  Dr. 
Thomas  Woodrow,  born  at  Paisley  in  1793,  a 
graduate  of  Glasgow  University,  recrossed  the 
Tweed  to  become  minister  of  the  Independent 
Congregation  at  Carlisle,  England.  After  hav- 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD         17 

ing  served  there  sixteen  years  and  begotten 
eight  children  he  felt  the  call  to  become  a  mis 
sionary  in  the  New  World. 

Accordingly  he  embarked,  the  21st  of  October, 
1835,  on  a  ship  bound  for  New  York.  All  his 
family  was  with  him:  his  wife,  Marion  (born 
Williamson),  and  their  children:  Robert,  John, 
Thomas,  William,  Janet,  George,  and  Marion, 
ranging  from  fifteen  years  of  age  down  to  three. 
One  day  little  Janet  was  on  deck;  she  happened 
to  be  clutching  a  rope  when  a  big  wave  hit  the 
ship,  buried  her  bow  in  the  water,  and  sent  the 
little  maid  far  out  over  the  sea;  however,  she 
held  on  fast  and  escaped  with  a  good  wetting. 

All  landed  safely  after  a  passage  of  ten  weeks, 
having  spent  Christmas  and  New  Year's  Day 
at  sea.  Shortly  after  the  landing,  however,  we 
find  this  passage  in  the  Doctor's  diary: 

NEW  YORK,  U.  S.,  February  23,  1836. 
Little  did  I  expect  that  the  first  death  I  should  have  to      ^  JJ 
record  on  my  arrival  in  this  country  should  be  that  of  my       / 
dear  wife.     How  mysterious  and  distressing  often  are  the 
ways  of  God.     I  landed  in  this  country  on  the  12th  day 
of  January,  1836,  with  my  dear  wife  and  family,  and  on 


18  WOODROW  WILSON 

the  16th  inst.  the  faithful  and  affectionate  companion  of 
my  travels  was  taken  from  me  by  a  sudden  and  unex 
pected  stroke.  I  had  the  melancholy  satisfaction  yester 
day  of  committing  her  dear,  sweet  body  to  the  cold  and 
silent  tomb.  Her  body  was  interred  in  the  Oliver  Street 
Church  (Baptist)  Burial  Ground  in  a  dry,  sandy  grave, 
where  it  lies  until  the  morning  of  the  Resurrection,  when 
at  the  sound  of  the  last  trumpet  it  shall  be  raised  up  a 
glorious  and  incorruptible  body,  and  when  I  hope  I  shall 
meet  my  dear  love  and  join  with  her  and  all  the  redeemed 
in  praising  God  and  the  Lamb. 

However,  the  good  man  went  on  to  his  desti 
nation  —  Canada  —  where,  with  headquarters 
at  Brockville,  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  he  fulfilled 
for  a  while  the  duties  of  a  missionary  through  a 
wide  circuit  of  country.  In  a  year  came  an 
invitation  to  the  pastorate  of  the  First  Presby 
terian  Church  of  Chillicothe,  and  the  Woodrows 
came  into  the  States.  The  Doctor's  ministry 
at  Chillicothe  stretched  from  1837  to  April, 
1849.  While  there  he  married  a  second  time, 
in  1843,  the  bride  being  Harriet  L.  Renick, 
widow  of  Asahel  Renick.  From  Chillicothe 
he  went  to  Columbus,  where  he  was  pastor  of 
the  Hogg  First  Presbyterian  Church.  He  died 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD         19 

at  Columbus  April  27,  1877,  and  was  buried  in 
Greenlawn  Cemetery. 

The  history  of  the  Presbytery  of  Chillicothe 
says  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Woodrow  that  he 

Was  a  fine  scholar,  a  good  preacher,  and  especially 
powerful  in  prayer.  He  was  conservative  in  his  views  and 
thoroughly  presbyterian  in  his  belief.  His  sermons 
were  always  instructive  and  pointed.  He  loved  to  dwell 
on  the  great  cardinal  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  and  to  pro 
claim  them  in  their  simplicity  and  fulness. 

Doctor  Woodrow  was  a  stocky  man,  of  short 
stature  —  very  vigorous  in  the  pulpit.  A  man 
now  in  middle  life  remembers  hearing  him  preach 
a  sermon  in  the  chapel  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Augusta,  Ga.,  on  a  very  warm  day 
-  the  church  was,  in  fact,  that  presided  over 
by  the  Rev.  Joseph  R.  Wilson,  as  we  shall  see. 
Doctor  Woodrow  had  lost  or  misplaced  his 
spectacles,  and  so  the  Rev.  Mr.  WTilson 
canvassed  the  congregation  for  a  pair  that  would 
suit  the  preacher.  He  brought  to  the  pulpit 
a  variety  of  spectacles.  There  was  only  one 
pair  through  which  the  dominie  could  see  his 


20  WOODROW  WILSON 

manuscript.  These  were  too  big  for  him  and, 
as  he  preached,  they  kept  slipping  down  his 
nose,  which  was  also  the  course  of  the  perspira 
tion  that  gathered  on  the  preacher's  forehead. 
A  little  boy  in  a  front  row  sat  fascinated  by  the 
sight  of  the  spectacles  slowly  travelling  down 
the  parson's  nose  and  amazed  at  the  dexterity 
with  which  he  managed  to  catch  them  at  the 
last  minute,  push  them  up  and  go  on  with  the 
unbroken  discourse.* 

Two  weeks  after  his  marriage  with  Jessie 
Woodrow,  Joseph  Ruggles  Wilson  was  ordained 
by  the  Presbytery  of  Ohio.  It  was  several  years, 

*  Of  Dr.  Thomas  Woodrow's  children,  one  son,  James,  had  a  rather  remarkable  career: 
He  graduated  at  Jefferson  College,  where  he  was  a  classmate  of  Basil  Gildersleeve,  who 
has  taught  Latin  and  Greek  to  most  of  the  living  generation  of  Americans.  Then  he 
became  a  minister  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  His  real  interest,however,  seemed  to 
have  been  in  science,  and  he  went  to  Heidelberg  University,  where  he  achieved  such  dis 
tinction  that  he  was  invited  to  remain  as  a  professor  in  succession  to  the  celebrated 
Bunsen.  Coming  home,  however,  he  became  instead  a  professor  at  the  Southern  Pres 
byterian  Theological  Seminary  at  Columbia,  S.  C.,  his  chair  being  denominated,  in 
accordance  with  a  leading  thought  of  that  day,  that  of  "the  Relation  Between  Science 
and  Religion."  His  views  on  the  subject  of  evolution  becoming  more  pronounced,  they 
aroused  dissatisfaction,  and  he  was  obliged  to  resign.  Then  he  was  chosen  president  of 
South  Carolina  College.  Later  he  became  a  bank  president,  and  as  such  ended  his  days. 

Of  the  other  children,  Robert  developed  phenomenal  scholarship,  but  died  in  the  early 
twenties.  Thomas  was  a  man  of  considerable  ability  and  of  unusual  nobility  of  char 
acter.  He  lived  a  quiet,  self-sacrificing  life.  Cut  out  for  a  scholar,  the  necessities  of  the 
family  forced  him  into  business,  and  he  lived  as  a  gentleman  storekeeper.  William  was 
a  sort  of  rolling  stone,  but  when,  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings,  he  reached  Nebraska, 
he  got  hold  of  land  that  proved  to  be  of  value  and  acquired  considerable  fortune.  The 
daughter  Marion  married  James  Bones,  of  Augusta,  Ga.  A  new  acquaintance,  once  loth 
to  accept  the  homely  patronymic  of  Marion  Wilson's  husband,  undertook  to  address  him 
as  Mr.  Bone.  He  was  instantly  rebuked  with  the  words:  "No,  just  dry  Bones." 


- 


JUDGE  JAMES  WILSON 


THE  REV.  DR.  THOMAtt  WOODROW 


THE  REV.  DR.  JOSEPH  RUGGLES 
WILLIAM  DUANE  WILSON  WILSON 

GRANDFATHERS,  UNCLE  AND  FATHER  OF  WOOHROW  WILSON 


BACKGROUND  AND  BOYHOOD        21 

however,  before  he  undertook  a  pastorate  of 
any  consequence,  serving  for  a  year  as  "pro 
fessor  extraordinary"  of  rhetoric  in  Jefferson 
College,  and  for  four  years  as  professor  of 
chemistry  and  natural  sciences  in  Hampden- 
Sydney  College,  Virginia,  in  the  meantime  sup 
plying  small  neighboring  churches.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Wilson  had  become  the  father  of  two 
daughters,  Marion  and  Annie  Josephine,  before 
he  wras  called  as  pastor  to  Staunton,  Va,,  in  1855. 
Staunton,  where  he  remained  for  two  years,  was 
a  town  of  5,000  population,  beautifully  situated 
in  the  famous  Valley  of  Virginia. 

Here  it  was  that  on  December  28,  1856, 
Thomas  Woodrow  Wilson  was  born. 

The  infant  WTilson  (to  spend  a  moment  re 
viewing  his  parental  history),  was  born  to  an  au 
spicious  heritage.  jHis  blood  was  Scotch-Irish, 
a  strain  perhaps  the  most  vigorous  physically, 
the  most  alert  mentally,  the  most  robust  morally 
of  all  those  that  have  mingled  in  the  shaping  of 

le  American  character.     His    forebears    were 


22  WOODROW  WILSON 

men  and  women  who  had  conspicuously  dis 
played  the  qualities  of  a  sturdy  race:  they  were 
people  imaginative,  hopeful,  venturesome;  stub 
born,  shrewd,  industrious,  inclined  to  learning, 
strongly  tinctured  with  piety,  yet  practical  and 
thrifty.  On  one  side  they  were  an  ancient 
family  who  had  preserved  the  memory  of  a  part 
in  large  affairs,  who  for  generations  had  carried 
the  banner  of  religion  and  learning  —  the  para 
mount  concerns  of  Scottish  men.  On  the  other 
side  they  had  had  their  share  in  the  public 
affairs  of  a  more  modern  nation.  The  new-born 
was  descended  from  clergymen  and  editors; 
men  of  strong  opinions ;  men  likewise  accustomed 
to  give  free  leave  to  their  opinions.  They  were 
protestants  in  religion,  and  in  politics,  radicals; 
pioneers  —  a  stout-hearted  breed. 

Such  was  the  ancestral  preparation  for  life 
of  the  little  son  of  the  Presbyterian  pastor  who 
came  into  the  world  Christmas  week,  1856,  in 
the  dawn  of  an  ample  day  of  national  evolution 
and  conflict. 


CHAPTER  II 

BOYHOOD    IN    GEORGIA 

IN  THE  spring  of  1858,  Thomas  Woodrow 
Wilson  being  then  two  years  old,  the  family 
moved  to  Augusta,  Ga.,  where  thefather\vas 
to  be  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  for  the 
next  four  years. 

With  his  entrance  upon  the  Augusta  pastorate, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  WTilson  became  one  of  the  most 
noted  ministers  in  the  South.  Thoroughly 
equipped  in  the  theology  of  his  denomination, 
a  pulpit  orator  of  great  power  and  a  personality 
of  extraordinary  force,  he  early  reached  and  long 
maintained  a  position  of  much  influence.  When 
the  war  came  on,  he  embraced,  with  all  the 
strength  of  his  character,  the  Southern  side. 
At  the  division  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  into 
Northern  and  Southern  branches,  he  invited 
the  first  General  Assembly  of  the  latter  to  meet 

23 


24  WOODROW  WILSON 

in  his  church,  and  became  its  permanent  clerk. 
Twenty-five  years  later  Doctor  Wilson  gave  a 
description  of  the  scene  when,  in  that  assembly, 
the  chairman  on  the  committee  appointed  to 
prepare  an  address  justifying  the  separation, 
rose  to  speak: 

The  thrill  of  that  hour  is  upon  me  now.  The  house  was 
thronged,  galleries  and  floor.  The  meagre  person  of  the 
intellectual  athlete  (Dr.  Thornwell)  occupied  a  small  space 
in  the  front  of  the  pulpit,  and  so  near  as  to  gain  from  the 
framework  a  partial  support,  for  even  now  he  felt  the 
approach  of  fatal  disease.  Every  eye  was  upon  him,  and 
every  sound  was  hushed  as  by  a  spell  whilst  for  forty 
historic  minutes  this  Calvin  of  the  modern  Church  poured 
forth  such  a  stream  of  elevated  utterance  as  he  of  Geneva 
never  surpassed,  his  arguments  being  as  unanswerable  as 
they  were  logically  compact. 

In  1865,  Doctor  WTilson  was  styled  "Stated 
Clerk"  of  the  Southern  Presbyterian  General 
Assembly,  and  he  continued  to  be  such  until 
1899,  when  he  resigned,  being  then  seventy- 
seven  years  old  and  having  kept  the  Southern 
Presbyterian  records  for  nearly  forty  years.  He 
was  moderator  of  the  assembly  in  1879.  He 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  25 

died    at   Princeton,    N.    J.,    in   his  eighty -first 
year.* 

Mr.  Wilson  had  been  a  professor  of  rhetoric, 
and  he  always  remained  one,  taking  very  seri 
ously,  and  practising  with  a  sense  of  its  sanc 
tity,  the  art  of  words.  He  read  his  sermons, 
every  one  of  which  was  marked  by  high  literary 
finish,  although  in  no  sense  unduly  rhetorical. 
A  man  of  unusual  scholarship  and  a  student  to 
the  end  of  his  days,  he  is  remembered  to  have 
indulged  in  but  a  single  form  of  pedantry;  his 
regard  for  language  had  inclined  him  affec 
tionately  toward  the  original  significance  of 
words,  and  he  was  sometimes  observed  to  use 
them  in  an  antiquated  sense.  Thus  he  occasion 
ally  indulged  in  such  a  phrase  as,  "I  wonder  with 
a  great  admiration."  Charles  Lamb  used  to  do 
the  same  thing,  as  you  will  learn  if  you  will  read 
the  first  sentence  of  "Imperfect  Sympathies." 

*  Of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wilson's  children  other  than  Woodrow,  the  elder  daughter,  Marion, 
married  the  Rev.  Ross  Kennedy,  a  Presbyterian  minister,  who  died  in  Augusta,  Ark., 
some  years  ago.  The  younger  daughter,  Annie  Josephine,  became  the  wife  of  a  physician 
and  surgeon  of  Columbia,  S.  C.,  Dr.  George  Howe.  Mrs.  Howe  is  now  living,  a  widow, 
in  Raleigh,  N.  C.  A  second  son,  and  fourth  child,  Joseph  R.,  was  born  ten  years  after 
Woodrow.  After  leaving  college,  Joseph  R.  Wilson  went  to  Nashville,  Tenn.,  where  he 
has  made  himself  a  name  as  a  political  writer  of  influence  in  state  affairs.  Ht  is  now  city 
editor  of  the  Nashville  Banner. 


26  WOODROW  WILSON 

When  indulging  in  his  harmless  foible  the 
preacher  might  have  been  caught  glancing 
around  the  congregation  to  catch,  if  it  might  be, 
the  pleasure  of  an  appreciative  gleam  in  some 
hearer's  eye.  He  was  a  man  of  humor  as  well 
as  of  learning  and  thought,  and,  when  his  son 
had  grown  to  discerning  years,  always  showed 
great  delight  if  the  boy  evinced,  by  repeating  it, 
that  he  remembered  some  fanciful  or  eloquent 
or  learned  phrase. 

Mr.  Wilson  used  to  speak  with  contempt  of 
the  florid  style  of  oratory,  and  even  early  in 
life  his  son  was  trained  to  consciousness  of  the 
absurdity  of  high-falutin  rhetoric.  He  remem 
bers  to-day  as  one  of  the  funniest  things  he  saw 
as  a  boy  the  peroration  which  a  florid  preacher 

ade  in  his  father's  pulpit.  The  visitor  had  risen 
rather  rapidly  to  extreme  heights  of  eloquence, 
and,  trembling  on  the  dizzy  cliffs,  having  exhaust 
ed  all  the  superlatives  of  the  language  and  all  the 
figures  of  speech  within  his  knowledge  —  and 
his  voice  as  well  —  he  achieved  his  climax  by 
means  of  a  whistle  and  a  spiral  upward  move 
ment  of  his  forefinger,  as  indication  of  the  course 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  27 

of  a  skyrocket.  Thus  the  imagination  could 
follow  whither  voice  and  rational  thought  could 
no  further  proceed. 

The  city  of  Augusta  in  the  decade  1860-70 
was  a  community  of  about  15,000  souls.  It  was 
not  as  distinctively  southern  a  city  as  might  be 
imagined,  being  then  a  place  of  rolling  mills, 
furnaces,  railroad  shops,  where  the  cotton  trade 
also  flourished,  and  cotton  spinning  mills  were 
busy. 

The  First  Presbyterian  Church  stood,  as  it 
stands  to-day,  in  the  middle  of  a  lot  occupying 
an  entire  square  on  Telfair  Street.  (To-day, 
the  Telfair  Sunday-school  building  has  been 
built  by  the  side  of  the  old  church.)  The  church 
was,  and  is,  a  dignified  and  even  imposing  edifice. 
It  was,  and  is,  surrounded  by  a  beautiful  grove. 
The  congregation  was  the  most  influential,  in 
point  of  numbers  and  wealth,  in  the  city.  The 
sewing  circle  was  a  social  factor  among  the  ladies 
of  Augusta.  The  Sunday-school,  which  then 
met  in  a  building  at  the  corner  of  Ellis  and  Mc- 
Intosh  Streets,  was  a  large  one.  Its  super- 


28  WOODROW  WILSON 

intendent  became  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wilson's  brother- 
in-law;  he  was  Mr.  James  W.  Bones.  j 

Diagonally  across  from  the  church  was  theN 
parsonage  —  a  two-story,  brick  building,  rather 
a  mansion  in  proportions,  surrounded  by  stable, 
outbuildings,  and  wall,  all  of  red  brick. 

Tommie  Wilson's  earliest  recollected  impres 
sion  had  to  do  with  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil 
War.  On  a  certain  day  in  November,  1860,  the 
little  boy,  playing  on  the  gate  before  his  father's 
house,  saw  two  men  meet  on  the  sidewalk  and 
heard  one  of  them  cry:  "Lincoln  is  elected, 
and  there'll  be  war!"  This  is  the  earliest  rec 
ollection  of  Woodrow  Wilson.  Something  in 
the  shrill  tone  of  the  speaker  struck  for  the  first 
time  a  chord  of  lasting  memory. 

Yet  Woodrow  Wilson  remembers  little,  almost 
nothing,  of  the  war.  Augusta  was  on  an  island 
around  which  flowed  the  current  of  the  conflict. 
It  was  never  occupied  by  Federal  troops  until 
reconstruction  days.  No  refugees  ever  fled  to  it. 
The  man  does  remember  that  the  boy  saw  a 
troop  of  men  in  every  sort  of  garb,  mounted  on 
every  sort  of  horse,  ride  past  the  house  one  day 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  29 

on  their  way  to  join  the  Confederate  Army. 
They  were  not  a  terrifying  or  glorious  spectacle. 
The  boy  cried  after  them  in  a  slang  exclamation 
of  the  day :  "  Go  get  your  mule ! " 

He  does  remember  the  scarcity  of  the  food 
supply  that  came  on  as  the  war  progressed.  Not 
that  there  was  not  enough  food,  but  it  was  greatly 
restricted  in  variety.  The  restriction  was  not 
always  unhappy,  for  it  encouraged  the  ingenuity 
of  housekeepers  and  taught  them  the  edible 
quality  of  some  things  heretofore  scorned.  The 
delicious  taste  of  the  soup  made  from  the  cow- 
peas,  previously  fed  only  to  the  cattle,  lingers 
to  this  day  in  the  mouth  of  the  little  boy  who 
tasted  it. 

Once  when  rumors  came  into  the  city  of  an 
approaching  army  (Sherman  was  threatening 
Augusta),  a  company  of  gentlemen  armed  them 
selves  and  marched  valiantly  out  of  town  in  the 
direction  of  the  oncoming  host.  They  lay  all 
night  on  their  arms  in  the  woods  and  probably 
had  a  very  enjoyable  picnic  of  it,  while  their 
wives  and  families  were  waiting  anxiously  at 
home  for  news.  The  son  of  the  Presbyterian 


30  WOODROW  WILSON 

pastor  remembers  the  anxiety,  the  prayers,  the 
unextinguished  lamp  in  the  parsonage  all  night. 
The  brave  defenders  of  their  homes  and  firesides 
returned  unensanguined;  the  army  never  came. 

Wilson  remembers  a  little  pile  of  plug  tobacco 
boxes  of  thick  wood,  tightly  clamped  with  tin, 
reposing  in  a  corner  of  the  attic,  growing  in  size 
from  time  to  time.  These  were  days  when 
careful  stewards  were  putting  all  their  spare 
resources  into  cash  or  the  equivalent  of  cash  for 
savings,  and  the  funds  of  not  a  few  were  turned 
into  plug  tobacco,  that  being  an  asset  easily 
convertible  into  money.  The  parson,  too,  had 
his  little  horde  of  gold. 

There  was  another  war  event  that  made  its 
impression  upon  the  boy:  In  the  summer  of 
'65  he  saw  Jefferson  Davis  ride  by,  under  guard, 
on  his  way  to  Fortress  Monroe. 

After  '65,  Doctor  Wilson's  church  was  occu 
pied  temporarily  by  Federal  soldiers.  How 
ever,  such  hardships  as  the  city  of  Augusta 
suffered  through  the  war  were  nothing  compared 
with  those  endured  in  most  parts  of  the  South. 
It  is  to  this  fact  that  is  to  be  attributed  the  small 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  31 

part  in  Woodrow  Wilson's  education  played  by 
the  passions  of  the  great  conflict.  He  was  only 
nine  years  old  when  the  war  ended.  He  was, 
too,  apparently,  a  boy  who  somewhat  tardily 
developed  strong  convictions.  In  short,  he  was 
a  real  boy  while  he  was  a  boy,  more  concerned 
in  the  games  of  his  crowd  than  in  the  principles 
of  a  war  of  which  they  saw  little. 

The  Wilson  boy  was,  his  companions  say,  an 
active  little  fellow.  It  was  a  peculiarity  that 
he  was  always  running;  he  seemed  incapable  of 
proceeding  from  point  to  point  otherwise.  He 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  walked  until  he  was 
fourteen  or  fifteen  years  old. 

One  of  the  thrilling  moments  of  the  boy's  early 
life  was  the  day  and  evening  when  the  first  street 
car  came  down  the  streets  of  Augusta.  The 
cars  were  of  the  bobtail  variety  with  a  box  for 
nickels  up  in  front.  At  first,  for  the  boys,  the 
chief  use  and  purpose  of  this  new  wonder  was 
the  manufacture  of  scissors  out  of  crossed  pins 
laid  on  the  track.  By  night  —  the  electric 
light  had  not  then  turned  night  into  day  —  the 


32  WOODROW  WILSON 

glimmering  red,  purple,  and  green  lights  carried 
by  the  cars  afforded  endless  pleasure  as  they 
approached  and  receded.  The  boys,  too,  made 
friends  with  the  drivers  and  went  along  with 
them  on  their  trips,  being  allowed  sometimes  to 
work  the  brakes  and  to  turn  the  switches. 

A  little  later  Tom  learned  the  delight  of  the 
saddle.  Doctor  Wilson  kept  a  big  black 
buggy  horse,  which  Tommy  used  to  ride  — 
"conservatively,"  says  his  old  playmate,  Pleas 
ant  A.  Stovall,  now  president  and  editor  of  the 
Savannah  Press  and  one  of  the  leading  men  of 
the  state.  Pleasant  Stovall  was  prone  to  get 
many  a  tumble  as  the  two  lads  rode  through  the 
streets  and  suburbs  of  Augusta,  and  used  to 
wonder  how  his  canny  playmate  got  none. 

The  stable  or  barn  and  the  lot  enclosed  by  the 
parsonage  offices  were  a  favorite  resort  for  all 
the  boys  of  the  neighborhood,  among  whom 
Wilson  was  a  natural  leader.  He  and  Pleasant 
Stovall  organized  a  club  among  the  lads  and 
called  it  the  "Lightfoot  Club."  The  chief 
activities  of  this  fellowship  seem  to  have  been 
the  playing  of  baseball  with  other  nines  of  town 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  33 

boys  and  the  holding  of  meetings  characterized 
by  much  nicety  of  parliamentary  procedure. 
Every  one  of  the  little  chaps  knew  perfectly  well 
just  what  the  "previous  question"  was;  knew 
that  only  two  amendments  to  a  resolution  could 
be  offered;  that  these  were  to  be  voted  on  in 
reverse  order,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  The  chief 
ornament  of  the  clubroom  was  a  highly  colored 
presentation  of  his  Satanic  Majesty,  originally 
an  advertisement  from  a  brand  of  deviled  ham. 
The  "Lightfoots"  practised  and  played  occa 
sional  match  games  in  the  grounds  of  the  Acad 
emy  of  Richmond  County,  on  Telfair  Street, 
just  below  the  church. 

The  city  of  Augusta,  founded  by  Oglethorpe, 
was  a  pleasant,  even  beautiful  place,  with  its 
broad,  well-shaded  streets  —  one  of  them  a 
boulevard  on  which  stands  a  monument  to 
Georgia's  Signers  of  the  Declaration -- but 
rather  wanting  in  bold  or  picturesque  features. 
The  Savannah  River  at  that  point  is  broad,  the 
bank  is  barren,  and  the  current  heavy  with  red 
clay.  As  romantic  a  spot  as  the  city  possessed 
was  the  grove  in  wrhich  the  church  stood  —  a 


34  WOODROW  WILSON 

place  of  solemn  shade  and  mysterious  whisper-  • 
ings,  often  the  resort  of  the  dreaming  boy. 

In  the  neighborhood  of  the  town,  at  the  point 
now  called  Summerville,  was  a  delightful  sub 
urban  spot,  then  known  merely  as  the  "Sand 
Hills,"  where  Wilson's  uncle,  James  Bones,  who 
had  married  Marion  Woodrow,  Woodrow  Wil 
son's  aunt,  had  a  country  house.  Wilson  and 
Pleasant  Stovall  used  to  ride  out  to  the  "Sand 
Hills"  on  horseback  and  spend  a  great  deal  of 
their  time  in  the  pleasant  country.  Mrs.  Wilson 
frequently  spent  a  summer  in  the  North,  and 
when  she  was  away  from  home  the  boy  went  out 
to  live  with  his  aunt  in  the  Sand  Hills. 

The  daughter  of  the  house,  Jessie  Woodrow 
Bones  (she  is  now  Mrs.  A.  T.  H.  Brower  of 
Chicago),  was  a  great  tomboy  and  idolized  her 
cousin,  and  the  two  spent  many  a  long  happy 
summer  day  at  play  in  the  woods.  Long  before 
she  knew  a  letter,  he  had  filled  her  mind  and 
imagination  with  the  "Leather  Stocking  Tales," 
and  what  he  read  to  her  or  told  her  in  the  twi 
light  on  the  veranda  they  acted  out  in  their  play 
next  day.  Casting  aside  all  the  encumbrances 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  35 

of  civilization  except  that  which  conservative 
authority  in  the  shape  of  the  aunt  and  mother 
required,  they  stained  their  faces,  arms,  and  legs 
with  pokeberry  juice  and,  with  head-dresses  of 
feathers  and  armed  with  bows  and  arrows,  crept 
out  of  the  house  and  stationed  themselves  by  the 
side  of  a  lonely  road  leading  from  Augusta  to  a 
negro  settlement  in  the  piney  woods.  Here 
they  would  lie  in  wait  until  chance  brought  them 
their  victims  in  the  shape  of  little  darkies  on  their 
way  to  town  with  bundles  of  lightwood  on  their 
heads.  Then,  with  blood-curdling  war-whoops, 
they  would  dash  out  upon  the  unsuspecting  prey, 
brandishing  wooden  tomahawks  in  frightful 
fashion.  The  pair  of  youthful  savages  never 
made  any  captives  and  had  to  console  themselves 
by  remembering  that  kinky  wool  would  not 
make  attractive  scalps  to  hang  at  their  belts. 
When  no  victims  were  forthcoming,  little  Jessie 
had  to  impersonate  the  hated  white  man,  and 
she  was  invariably  caught,  made  to  run  the 
gauntlet,  scalped,  and  burned  at  the  stake  by 
the  bloodthirsty  red-man. 

On  other  occasions,  the  little  girl  had  to  enact 


36  WOODROW  WILSON 

the  part  of  various  kinds  of  game.  Once  she 
was  supposed  to  be  a  squirrel  in  the  top  of  a  tree. 
So  good  a  marksman  was  her  cousin  that  she  was 
hit  by  an  arrow  and  came  tumbling  to  the  ground 
at  his  feet.  The  terrified  little  hunter  carried 
her  limp  body  into  the  house  with  a  conscience 
torn  as  it  probably  never  has  been  since,  crying: 
"I  am  a  murderer.  It  wasn't  an  accident.  I 
killed  her."  Young  bones  are  supple,  and  the 
little  girl  had  happily  sustained  no  injury. 

Mr.  Bones's  house  stood  next  to  the  United 
States  Arsenal,  which,  after  the  close  of  the  war, 
was  occupied  by  the  Federal  troops.  Tommy 
and  Jessie  never  tired  of  going  to  the  guard 
house,  at  the  entrance  to  the  arsenal  grounds,  to 
look  at  the  soldiers  and  talk  with  them.  One 
day,  however,  Jessie's  mother  explained  to  her 
that  those  friends  of  theirs  were  Yankees  and 
had  fought  against  the  South.  It  was  a  great 
blow  to  the  couple,  and  they  often  discussed  the 
feasibility  of  converting  the  Yankees  into  Pres 
byterians  —  all  good  people  being  Presbyterians 
and  all  wicked  ones  Yankees. 

Tom  Wilson,  for  one  reason  or  another,  was  not 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  37 

taught  his  letters  until  long  past  the  date  at  which 
most  youngsters  have  learned  to  read.  It  may 
have  been  that  his  mother,  who  had  been  stren 
uously  taught  in  her  young  years  in  England  and 
who  used  in  later  life  to  speak  feelingly  of  the 
folly  of  having  to  learn  Latin  in  one's  sixth  year, 
had  ideas  of  her  own  about  forcing  the  young 
intellect.  It  may  have  been  his  father,  who  was 
a  man  of  very  great  positiveness  and  originality 
of  opinion,  was  averse  to  having  his  son  get  his 
first  glimpses  into  the  wrorld  of  knowledge  other 
wise  than  through  himself.  But,  however  it 
came  about, ^om  Wilson  was  not  taught  his 
alphabet  until  he  wras  nine  years  old.  There  was  - 
a  great  deal  of  reading  aloud  in  the  family,  not 
only  his  father  and  mother,  but  his  two  sisters 
frequently  reading  him  choice  extracts  from 
standard  books.  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Dickens 
were  made  familiar  to  the  lad  in  this  way:  he 
remembers  still  the  pleasure  which  his  father 
showed  in  "Pickwick,"  reading  the  instalments 
aloud,  with  Mrs.  Wilson  as  the  special  audience, 
though  even  at  the  early  age  of  eight  the  boy  re 
members  that  he  appreciated  much  of  the  humor 


38  WOODROW  WILSON 

of  the  young  author  —  just  as  Dickens  himself 
asserted  that  at  the  same  age  he  appreciated  the 
humor  of  some  of  the  situations  which  he  later 
recorded  in  "Pickwick  Papers." 

The  lad  attended  the  best  schools  Augusta 
offered.  Public  schools  were  either  non-existent 
or  so  poor  as  to  be  worthless,  so  the  boy  was  put 
at  an  institution  kept  by  Prof.  Joseph  T.  Derry, 
with  a  habitation  over  the  post-office  on  Jackson 
Street.  Its  pupils  played  in  the  old  "burnt  lot" 
near  the  bell  tower.  Later,  Professor  Derry 
moved  his  school  to  a  building  on  the  river  bank 
next  to  some  cotton  warehouses.  Here  the  boys 
made  the  warehouses  their  playgrounds,  explor 
ing  and  playing  hide-and-seek  among  the  cotton 
bales.  It  is  still  a  recollection  that  the  young 
sters  of  that  day,  when  bent  upon  some  boyish 
prank,  found  that  a  pad  gathered  from  the 
cotton  bales  was  an  effective  protection  from 
deserved  punishment. 

Joseph  Rucker  Lamar,  now  an  Associate 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  was  a  pupil  of  Professor  Derry  at  about 
the  same  time.  Joe  Lamar  was  the  son  of 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  39 

another  minister  in  the  city  —  the  Rev.  James 
S.  Lamar,  pastor  of  the  Christian  Church,  who 
lived  in  a  house  on  Mclntosh  Street  next  to  the 
Wilsons.  There  were  two  Lamar  boys,  Joe  and 
Phil,  and  they  were  rather  given  to  squabbling. 
Joe  was  the  bigger,  but  Phil  was  an  active  little 
chap,  and  when  Joe  was  administering  a  "lick 
ing,"  he  would  grow  so  enraged  that  his  contor 
tions  provoked  Joe  to  such  laughter  that  he 
would  fall  down  and  helplessly  allow  the  smaller 
boy  to  administer  the  drubbing.  Other  school 
mates  of  Tom  Wilson  were  William  A.  Keener, 
sometime  professor  of  law  at  Harvard  and  later 
dean  of  the  Columbia  University  Law  School. 
Still  another  was  William  Doughty,  now  a 
physician  of  Augusta. 

Prof.  John  T.  Deny,  much  beloved  of  all  his 
pupils,  had  returned  home  from  four  years  in 
the  Confederate  Army  to  teach.  He  is  the 
author  of  several  books  and  is  now  in  the  Agri 
cultural  Department  of  the  State  of  Georgia. 
Mr.  Derry  says  that  Tom  Wilson  was  a  quiet, 
studious  boy,  and  he  speaks  with  the  greatest 
delight  of  the  Augusta  days.  "Thirty -five 


40  WOODROW  WILSON 

years,"  he  says,  "I  spent  in  teaching,  fourteen 
instructing  boys  in  Augusta,  seventeen  as 
professor  of  languages  and  history  in  Wesleyan 
Female  College  at  Macon,  Ga.,  and  four  years 
teaching  boys  and  girls  in  Atlanta.  Among  my 
pupils  I  can  count  a  governor  (Woodrow  Wil 
son);  a  justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  (Joseph  Lamar) ;  Congressmen;  legislators, 
sons,  daughters,  and  wives  of  generals,  governors, 
senators,  and  representatives.  But  no  part  of 
my  career  as  a  teacher  gives  me  more  pleasure 
than  the  memory  of  the  select  classical  school  on 
the  banks  of  the  Savannah  at  Augusta,  Ga." 

But  young  Wilson's  real  instructor  during  the 
Augusta  days  was  his  father.  Long  before  the 
age  at  which  boys  are  imbibing  knowledge  from 
books  he  was  already  receiving  from  the  lips  of 
his  father  an  education  more  varied,  more  prac 
tical  and  sound  than  any  that  could  otherwise 
have  come  to  him. 

Father  and  son  were  constant  companions, 
but  it  was  Sunday  afternoons  that  the  elder 
devoted  particularly  to  his  son's  training.  Then, 
sitting  on  the  floor,  or  rather  reclining  there 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEORGIA  41 

against  an  inverted  chair,  the  gifted  parson 
poured  out  into  the  ears  of  the  spellbound  lad 
all  the  stores  of  his  experience,  learning,  and 
thought.  He  was  a  man  of  wide  information  on 
the  affairs  of  the  world,  a  judge  of  good  literature, 
a  master  of  the  queen  of  the  sciences,  theology, 
and,  withal,  a  man  of  much  imaginative  power 
—  mingling  with  the  warp  of  sound  and  well- 
founded  thought  the  woof  of  picturesque  fancy. 
Above  all,  the  elder  Wilson  had  a  clean- working 
mind.  Jfe^had  a  way  of  recognizing  facts,  and 
the  processes  of  his  thought  dealt  with  them  in 
the  light  of  reason.  If  the  boy  had  learned 
nothing  else,  he  w^ould  have  been  happy  indeed 
to  have  been  guided  from  the  beginning  into  the 
ways  of  clear,  cold  thinking. 

And  Doctor  Wilson  was  a  master  of  the  Eng 
lish  language.  He  believed  that  nobody  had  a 
thought  until  he  could  put  it  quickly  and  def 
initely  into  words.  This  he  did  himself,  and 
this  he  taught  his  son  to  do.  So  that  when 
the  boy  came  to  learn  the  written  symbols  in 
which  speech  is  set  down  he  was  learning  only 
a  method  of  recording  and  transmitting  a  Ian- 


42  WOODROW  WILSON 

guage    which    he    already    was    well    able    to 
handle. 

On  Mondays  the  father  would  almost  without 
exception  take  his  son  out  with  him  on  some 
excursion  in  the  city  or  neighboring  country. 
On  a  Monday  the  two  would  visit  the  machine 
shops;  Tom  would  be  shown  furnaces,  boilers, 
machinery;  taught  to  follow  the  release  of  power 
from  the  coal  to  the  completion  of  its  work  in 
a  finished  product  of  steel  or  of  cotton.  He  re 
members  to  this  day  the  impression  made  upon 
him  then  by  the  gigantic  engines,  the  roar  of 
furnaces,  or  the  darting  up  of  sheets  of  flame; 
he  remembers  great  forges  presided  over  by 
sooty -faced  imps.  In  this  fashion,  by  a  contin 
ual  round  of  visits  of  inspection  in  which  the 
sight  of  visible  things  and  visible  processes  was 
the  text  of  running  lectures  on  the  principles 
of  nature,  chemistry,  physics,  and  of  the  or 
ganization  of  human  society,  the  boy  learned 
what  he  would  have  had  great  difficulty  in 
learning  from  books  alone. 


CHAPTER  III 

OFF    TO    COLLEGE 

THE  Wilsons  moved  from  Augusta  to 
Columbia,  S.  C.,  in  the  autumn  of  1870, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Wilson  resigning  his  pas 
torate  in  order  to  become  a  professor  in  the 
Southern  Presbyterian  Theological  Seminary. 
His  chair  was  that  of  pastoral  and  evangelistic 
theology.  He  retained  it  four  years. 

Columbia  is  a  statutory  —  an  artificial  —  city, 
its  location  having  been  determined  by  the 
desire  of  South  Carolina  to  have  a  capital  in  the 
exact  centre  of  the  state.  Neither  city  nor  sur 
rounding  country  offered  the  opening  mind  of  the 
boy  much  of  suggestion  or  inspiration. 

Tom  appears  to  have  retreated  here  into  the 
more  exciting  scenes  of  an  imaginative  life.  He 
forsook  in  mind  the  streets  of  the  commonplace 
town  and  the  dreary  banks  of  the  Congaree,  and 
adventured  forth  in  search  of  exploits  in  far-off 

43 


44  WOODROW  WILSON 

lands.  All  boys  do  something  of  the  sort,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  in  the  case  of  this 
young  dreamer,  the  exercise  of  imagination  was 
constant  and  vivid  and  that  during  a  great  part 
of  his  days  he  lived,  so  far  as  his  mind  was  con 
cerned,  in  one  or  another  of  the  various  char 
acters  which  he  had  invented  and  assumed. 

Thus  for  many  months  he  was  an  Admiral 
of  the  Navy,  and  in  that  character  wrote  out 
daily  reports  to  the  Navy  Department.  His 
main  achievement  in  this  capacity  was  the  dis 
covery  and  destruction  of  a  nest  of  pirates  in 
the  Southern  Pacific  Ocean.  It  appears  that 
the  Government,  along  with  all  the  people  of  the 
country,  had  been  terrified  by  the  mysterious 
disappearance  of  ships  setting  sail  from  or  ex 
pected  at  our  Western  ports.  Vessels  would  set 
out  with  their  precious  freight,  never  to  be  heard 
from  again,  swallowed  up  in  the  bosom  of  an 
ocean  on  which  no  known  war  raged,  no  known 
storms  swept.  Admiral  Wilson  was  ordered  to 
investigate  with  his  fleet.  After  an  eventful 
cruise  they  overtook,  one  night,  a  piratical  look 
ing  craft  with  black  hull  and  rakish  rig.  Again 


OFF  TO  COLLEGE  45 

and  again  the  chase  eluded  the  Admiral.  Finally 
the  pursuit  led  the  fleet  to  the  neighborhood  of 
an  island  uncharted  and  hitherto  unknown. 
Circumnavigation  seemed  to  prove  it  bare  and 
uninhabited,  with  no  visible  harbor.  There  was, 
however,  a  narrow  inlet  which  seemed  to  end  at 
an  abrupt  wall  of  rock  a  few  fathoms  inland. 
Something,  however,  finally  led  the  Admiral  to 
send  a  boat  into  this  inlet  — and  it  was  dis 
covered  that  it  was  the  cunningly  contrived 
entrance  to  a  spacious  bay,  the  island  being 
really  a  sort  of  atoll.  Here  lay  the  ships  of  the 
outlawed  enemy  and  the  dismantled  hulls  of 
many  of  their  victims.  And  it  may  be  believed 
that  the  brave  American  tars,  under  the  leader 
ship  of  the  redoubtable  Admiral,  played  a  truly 
heroic  part  in  the  destruction  of  the  pirates  and 
the  succor  of  such  of  their  victims  as  survived. 

These  are  two  things  worth  noting  about  this 
story :  First,  the  length  of  time  —  several 
months  —  in  which  the  boy  lived  the  greater 
part  of  his  waking  hours  in  the  character  which 
he  had  invented;  and,  second,  the  verisimilitude 
with  which  the  details  relating  to  the  great 


46  WOODROW  WILSON 

adventure  were  set  forth  in  the  daily  "reports." 
While  the  climax  of  the  story  is,  of  course,  extrav 
agantly  romantic,  the  boy's  written  account  of 
the  details  of  day's  after  day's  events  consists  of 
the  plainest  and  most  realistic  statement  of 
commonplace  things  that  would  actually  have 
happened.  In  reading  this  singular  manuscript, 
one  thinks  of  Defoe  and  the  art  with  which  that 
master  story-teller  built  up  his  extraordinary 
effects  out  of  a  mass  of  commonplace  circum 
stances. 

About  this  time  Woodrow  was  reading 
Cooper's  sea  tales  and  Marryat's  yarns,  and, 
though  he  had  never  seen  a  ship  in  his  life  — 
never  even  seen  the  ocean  —  he  knew  every 
particular  of  every  class  or  type  of  sailing  ship, 
the  name,  place,  and  use  of  every  spar,  sheet, 
and  shroud. 

At  Columbia,  Woodrow  —  as  he  began  now 
to  be  commonly  called  —  attended  the  school 
kept  by  Mr.  Charles  Heyward  Barnwell.  But 
his  real  education  continued  to  be  conducted  by 
his  father. 

He  was  now  approaching  the  age  for  college. 


OFF  TO  COLLEGE  47 

In  spite  of  his  late  start  at  books,  he  had  rapidly 
qualified  in  the  ordinary  preparatory  studies, 
and  at  seventeen  —  in_the  autumn  of   1873  - 
he  was  sent  off  to  college. 

Davidson  College,  in  famous  Mecklenburg 
County,  N.  C.,  is  a  prosperous  institution  now, 
and  forty  years  ago  was  a  staunch  school.  The 
fact  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wilson  had  been  ap 
proached  in  connection  with  its  presidency  may 
have  had  something  to  do  with  its  choice  for 
Woodrow,  but  it  was  believed  to  be  (and  with 
reason)  an  excellent  college  of  stout  Presbyterian 
proclivities  and  thorough  teaching.  Though 
it  stood,  then,  in  the  midst  of  an  unkempt  field, 
the  central  building  was  a  fabric  of  considerable 
nobility,  with  a  rotunda  and  dome  and  two  side 
wings.  A  long  corridor  ran  through  the  length 
of  the  building  —  much  to  the  detriment  of  dis 
cipline,  it  is  remembered.  The  central  building 
contained  a  chapel  and  recitation  rooms,  while 
the  wings  were  dormitories. 

Living  was  rather  primitive;  the  boys  kept 
their  own  rooms,  filled  their  own  lamps  —  for 
they  had  only  kerosene  —  cut  up  and  brought 


48  WOODROW  WILSON 

in  the  wood  for  their  own  fires,  and  carried  in 
water  from  the  pump  outside.  Wilson's  room 
was  on  the  ground  floor,  luckily;  it  was  rather  a 
job  to  carry  arm-loads  of  wood  to  remote  rooms 
on  the  upper  floors.  There  still  lingers  at 
Davidson  the  tradition  that  Tom  W:ilson  estab 
lished  a  record  in  the  minimum  time  necessary 
to  dress,  cross  the  campus,  and  be  in  his  seat 
when  the  before-breakfast  chapel  bell  stopped 
ringing.  His  room-mate  was  a  young  Irishman, 
William  Lecky  by  name,  who  was  killed  shortly 
after  leaving  college. 

When  Wilson  was  there,  Davidson  was  a  very 
small  village,  only  having  the  college  buildings, 
the  home  of  the  faculty,  one  general  store,  and 
two  small  grocery  stores,  where  the  boys  bought 
their  cigars  and  tobacco,  and  canned  oysters, 
sardines,  cheese,  and  crackers  for  their  nightly 
feasts.  Squire  Allison,  who  was  also  the  post 
master,  and  John  Scofield  were  the  owners  of 
these  little  groceries,  and  were  famous  characters 
in  the  lives  of  the  boys. 

Instruction  at  Davidson  was  rather  better 
than  was  common  at  small  colleges  in  those 


OFF  TO  COLLEGE  49 

days.  The  University  of  North  Carolina  had 
closed  on  account  of  the  war,  as  had  some  of  the 
other  leading  colleges  in  the  South,  and  David 
son  reaped  the  benefit  of  having  such  professors 
as  Dr.  Charles  Phillips  and  Col.  William  Martin 
from  the  State  University,  Blake  and  Anderson 
from  South  Carolina,  Richardson  from  Missis 
sippi,  and  Latimer  from  Virginia,  all  of  them 
excellent  teachers  in  their  respective  lines.  Still, 
it  can  hardly  be  said  that  Wilson  received  much 
,  intellectual  impulse  here,  although  he  probably 
added  something  to  his  stock  of  knowledge.  His 
college-mates  included  a  score  or  more  who 
afterward  made  reputations  in  the  world,  per 
haps  the  most  eminent  being  R.  B.  Glenn,  who 
became  Governor  of  North  Carolina.  /His  class 
mates  remember  nothing  unusual  about  WTilson 
when  at  Davidson  College.  They  say  he  had 
an  open,  engaging  face,  pleasant  manners,  and 
was  very  generally  liked.  They  agree  that  he 
was  not  very  much  interested  in  games,  which 
then  consisted  of  baseball  and  "shinny."  How 
ever,  he  played  baseball  for  a  while  on  the  col 
lege  nine  and  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the 


50  WOODROW  WILSON 

captain  say:  "Wilson,  you  would  make  a 
dandy  player  if  you  were  not  so  damn  lazy/* 
He  was  a  great  walker  and  at  times  seemed  to 
like  to  be  alone,  walking  the  country  about  ap 
parently  wrapped  in  thought.  Still  he  was,  as 
a  rule,  a  very  social  animal,  and  a  great  talker 
in  congenial  company.  When  the  fellows  re 
paired  to  his  room  they  would  generally  find  him 
curled  up  on  the  bed  with  a  book  in  his  hand, 
reading.  He  joined  one  of  the  literary  societies, 
the  "Eumenean." 

Once  a  year,  in  February,  a  holiday  was  given 
to  every  student  on  which  he  was  to  plant  a 
tree  —  so,  whether  Wilson  did  it  to  get  the  holi 
day,  or  because  he  wanted  to  do  something  use 
ful,  he  planted  an  elm  on  the  campus  at  David 
son,  and  it  stands  there  strong  and  upright  to-day. 

Early  in  the  year,  a  small  incident  in  class 
fastened  upon  him  a  nickname.  The  rhetoric 
class  being  engaged  upon  that  well-known  part 
of  Trench's  "English,  Past  and  Present"  which 
sets  forth  (much  after  the  manner  of  the  Wamba 
in  the  opening  chapter  in  "Ivanhoe")  how  good 
Saxon  beasts  take  Norman  names  when  they 


OFF  TO  COLLEGE  51 

come  to  the  table,  the  professor  asked  Wood- 
row:  "What  is  calves'  meat  when  served  at 
table?"  and  received  the  hasty  reply,  "Mut 
ton!"  Wilson  was  "Monsieur  Mouton"  for 
the  rest  of  the  year. 

Indeed,  he  did  not  finish  the  year,  for  he 
fell  ill  just  before  the  examinations  came  on, 
and  was  taken  to  his  home,  now  at  Wilmington, 
N.  C.,  to  the  pastorate  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  to  which  city  Doctor  Wilson  had  just 
been  called. 

Woodrow  remained  in  his  father's  house  at 
Wilmington  throughout  the  year  1874-75.  It 
had  been  determined  that  he  should  not  return 
to  Davidson,  but  should  go  to  Princeton,  and 
he  spent  the  year  tutoring  in  Greek  and  a  few 
other  studies  which  it  was  thought  might  be 
necessary  for  entrance  at  the  Northern  uni 
versity. 

In  truth,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  play  done 
that  year,  too.  The  boy  had  grown  too  fast, 
and  was  hardly  fit  for  the  rigid  schedule  of  col 
lege  life.  So  he  "took  it  easy"  that  year,  in  a 
city,  the  first  he  had  ever  lived  in  that  possessed 


52  WOODROW  WILSON 

any  particular  local  charm.  Wilmington  was 
an  old  and  historic  place.  It  was  a  seaport;  for 
the  first  time,  Woodrow  saw  a  ship  and  caught 
the  smell  of  the  sea.  Foreign  shipping  floated 
in  the  noble  river  or  lay  at  the  docks.  Wil 
mington  was  a  great  depot  for  naval  stores;  its 
lower  streets  were  redolent  of  life  on  the  deep. 
Talk  was  still  full  of  the  adventures  of  the  block 
ade-runners  of  the  war  lately  ended,  Wilmington 
having  been  a  favorite  port  of  the  desperate  men 
and  swift  ships  that  then  made  so  many  gallant 
chapters  of  sea  history.  What  imaginative 
youth  from  the  interior  but  would  have  haunted 
the  docks  and  made  an  occasional  trip  down  to 
the  Cape,  to  return  with  the  pilot  of  an  outgoing 
ship. 

For  the  first  time,  here,  too,  the  young  man 
began  to  take  part  in  the  social  life  which  is  so 
important  an  element  of  existence  in  the  South. 
He  was  really  too  young  for  the  associations  into 
which  he  was  now  thrown,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Wilson 
immediately  achieving  devoted  popularity,  the 
parsonage  swiftly  becoming  a  social  rendezvous 
of  the  city.  It  was  a  city  of  gentlemen  of  good 


OFF  TO  COLLEGE  53 

company   and   women   who   \vould   have   been 
esteemed  brilliant  the  world  over. 

It  was  a  chap  very  different  from  the  raw 
youth  of  Davidson  who,  one  day  in  September, 
1875,  took  the  "Washington  and  Weldon"  train 
for  the  North  to  enter  Princeton  College. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A    STUDENT    AT    PRINCETON 

WHEN  Woodrow  Wilson  got  off  the  train 
at  the  little  station  in  Princeton,  early 
in  September,  1875,  one  of  134  new 
comers,  he  found  himself  in  a  charming  old 
town  of  maples,  elms,  and  catalpas,  among  which 
stood  the  college  buildings,  dating,  one  of  them, 
back  to  1756.  Almost  within  view  of  the  me 
tropolis  of  the  hemisphere,  Princeton,  three 
miles  from  a  railway  main  line,  was,  as  it 
is  still,  uniquely  sequestered,  the  noise  of  the 
city's  activities  reaching  it  as  a  dim  echo  —  as 
the  murmur  of  waves  that  beat  on  shores  scarcely 
aware  of  the  winds  that  raised  them. 

But  it  was  very  far  from  being  the  Princeton 
of  to-day.  It  was  still  the  "College  of  New 
Jersey,"  commonly  known  as  "Princeton  Col 
lege."  The  college  buildings  numbered  only 
sixteen;  Witherspoon  Hall  was  just  about  to  be 

54 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          55 

begun.  The  faculty  consisted  of  twenty -seven 
professors  and  instructors,  seven  of  them  Pres 
byterian  ministers.  It  can  scarcely  be  said  to 
have  contained  any  great  teachers,  but  there 
were  in  it  several  men  of  considerable  force  of 
personality  --  the  president,  Dr.  James  McCosh; 
Professors  Charles  A.  Young,  the  astronomer; 
Cyrus  Brackett,  John  T.  Duffield,  William  A. 
Packard,  a  cultured  Latinist;  Arnold  Guyot, 
the  celebrated  geologist  and  geographer.  Presi 
dent  McCosh  was  in  his  prime,  but  Professor 
Guyot  was  on  the  verge  of  retirement.  Prince 
ton  inxt875  was  a  good  old-fashioned  college 
where  a  man  might  learn  his  physics,  his  logic, 
his  moral  science,  mathematics,  "belles  lettres," 
astronomy,  go  on  with  his  Latin  and  Greek,  and 
study  the  harmony  of  science  and  revealed  re 
ligion  as  well  as  anywherX 

The  place,  full  of  traditions  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  War,  had  been  a  favorite  resort  of 
Southern  students  up  to  1861.  The  first  war 
had  battered  the  front  of  Old  Nassau  Hall,  and 
the  second  had  done  more  substantial,  if  less 
picturesque,  damage  in  withdrawing  from  the 


56  WOODROW  WILSON 

institution  a  large  part  of  its  Southern  patron 
age  —  the  South  could  ill  afford  to  send  its  young 
men  far  away  to  college  now.  This  year,  in 
deed,  there  came  twenty  men  from  the  Southern 
States.  It  is  remembered  that  some  of  these 
youths  needed  reconstruction;  one  of  them 
needed  it  badly:  Peter  J.  Hamilton  of  Alabama 
later  developed  into  a  man  whose  career  is  a 
credit  to  his  native  state  as  well  as  to  his  college, 
but  he  came  up  to  Princeton  a  rare  "fire-eater." 
In  the  campaign  year  of  1876,  the  last  in  which 
"the  bloody  shirt"  was  flagrantly  waved, 
Hamilton  demonstrated  his  sentiments  by  going 
out  into  the  street  rather  than  pass  underneath 
a  national  flag  suspended  over  the  sidewalk. 
The  action  got  noised  about,  and  Hamilton  was 
waited  on  at  night  by  a  committee  of  students, 
who  pulled  him  out  of  bed,  made  him  do  rev 
erence  to  the  emblem  he  had  disdained,  and, 
after  sundry  hazing  stunts,  wrapped  him  in  the 
flag  and  put  him  back  to  bed. 

Wilson  is  remembered  in  no  such  way.  He 
was  known  as  a  Democrat  of  stout  opinions  from 
the  day  he  first  opened  his  mouth  on  the  campus, 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          57 

but  no  recollection  remains  of  his  having  dis 
played  any  sectional  passion.  A  classmate  re 
members,  however,  that  on  one  occasion  when  a 
group  of  fellows  were  talking  of  the  misfortunes 
that  follow  in  the  wake  of  war,  Wilson,  who  was 
in  the  group,  cried  out,  "You  know  nothing 
whatever  about  it!"  and  with  face  as  white  as  a 
sheet  of  paper  abruptly  left  the  company. 
Nevertheless,  one  of  his  nearest  friends  of  that 
day  remarks  that  it  was  only  years  after,  as  he 
was  reading  a  tribute  to  General  Lee  in  the 
"History  of  the  American  People,"  that  he  first 
realized  the  Southern  origin  of  his  old  classmate. 
All  testimony  goes  to  indicate  that  "Tom" 
Wilson  immediately  took  his  place  as  a  leader ^n 
the  class.  He  appeared  as  a  young  fellow  of 
great  maturity  of  character,  blended  with  un 
usual  freshness  of  interest  in  all  things  pertain 
ing  to  college  life.  He  had  the  manners  of  a 
young  aristocrat.  His  speech  was  cultured. 
He  soon  won  the  reputation  of  already  wide 
reading  and  sound  judgment.  There  is  abun 
dant  evidence  that  he  was,  from  the  start,  a 
marked  figure  among  the  men  who  now  con- 


58  WOODROW  WILSON 

stitute  the  "famous  class  of  '79."  There  have 
been  more  famous  Princeton  graduates  than 
these,  but  there  has  never  been  a  class  of  so  high 
an  average  of  ability.  Robert  Bridges,  one  of 
the  editors  of  Scribner's  Magazine;  the  Rev.  Dr. 
A.  S.  Halsey,  secretary  of  the  Presbyterian  Board 
of  Foreign  Missions;  Charles  A.  Talcott,  M.  C.; 
Mahlon  Pitney,  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States;  Robert  H.  McCarter,  ex-At 
torney-General  of  New  Jersey;  Edward  W.  Shel 
don,  president  of  the  United  States  Trust  Com 
pany;  Col.  Edwin  A.  Stevens  of  New  Jersey; 
Judge  Robert  R.  Henderson  of  Maryland  are  only 
typical  members  of  a  class  of  unusual  mental 
capacity.  Among  such  men,  Wilson  from  the 
start  ranked  high. 

Not  as  a  student  perhaps.  He  was  never  a 
bright  particular  star  in  examinations.  Prince 
ton  graduated  as  "honor  men"  such  students  as 
had  maintained  throughout  their  four  years' 
course  an  average  of  90  per  cent.  No  less  than 
forty-two  out  of  the  122  graduates  of  '79  were 
"honor  men."  Wilson  barely  got  in  among 
them;  he  ranked  forty-first  in  the  class. 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          59 

The  fact  is  that  this  son  of  clergymen  and 
editors  hadn't  come  to  school  to  pass  through  a 
standardized  curriculum  and  fill  his  head  with 
the  knowledge  prescribed  in  a  college  catalogue. 
He  had  come  to  prepare  himself  for  a  particular 
career  —  and  before  he  had  been  at  Princeton 
three  months  he  had  finally  determined  on  what 
that  career  should  be. 

The  class  historian,  Harold  ("Pete")  Godwin, 
celebrating  the  advent  in  Princeton  of  the 
members  of  the  class  that  graduated  in  '79,  de 
clares  that  on  arrival  "Tommy  Wilson  rushed 
to  the  library  and  took  out  Kant's  'Critique  of 
Pure  Reason." 

To  the  library  Tommy  Wilson  unquestionably 
did  rush.  But  not  to  read  of  pure  reason;  if 
ever  there  were  a  student  who  demanded  facts, 
concrete  subjects,  applied  reason,  it  was  this 
same  Wilson,  even  in  his  early  college  days. 

The  truth  is  that,  prowling  in  the  alcoves  of 
the   Chancellor  Green  Library  —  new  then  - 
one  day  early  in  the  term,  the  boy  stopped  at  the 
head  of  the  south  stairs,  where  the  bound  mag 
azines  were  kept,  and  his  hand  fell  upon  a  file 


60  WOODROW  WILSON 

of  the  Gentleman9 s  Magazine,  that  ancient  and 
respectable  repository  of  English  literature 
which  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  had  helped  to  start, 
away  back  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  with  his  reports  of  parliamentary  debates. 
When  Johnson  lay  on  his  death-bed,  refusing  to 
take  "inebriating  substance"  and  having  the 
church  service  read  to  him  daily,  he  declared 
that  his  only  compunction  was  those  parliamen 
tary  reports.  For,  of  course,  they  were  "fakes" 
ingeniously  composed  with  the  aid  of  William 
Guthrie,  a  Scotsman,  who  had  a  way  of  getting 
into  the  House.  Nevertheless,  the  eaves 
dropper's  meagre  recollections  amplified  into 
lengthy  speeches  full  of  sonorous  generalities 
in  the  true  Johnsonian  style  (the  redactor  taking 
mighty  good  care  "that  the  WTiig  dogs  should 
get  the  worst  of  it")  lay  at  the  foundation  of 
the  prosperity  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine. 

Now  it  happened  that  in  the  '70 's  last,  the 
editor  of  the  day  (himself  not  an  unworthy  suc 
cessor  of  Edward  Cave),  feeling  round  for  an 
attractive  feature,  hit  upon  the  idea  of  resum 
ing  the  parliamentary  reports.  Accordingly, 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          61 

there  began  in  the  number  for  January,  1874,  a 
series  of  articles  entitled  "Men  and  Manner  in 
Parliament"  by  "The  Member  for  the  Chiltern 
Hundreds"  —  the  signature  being  an  allusion  to 
a  parliamentary  practice  which  need  not  be  ex 
plained  to  those  familiar  with  English  affairs. 
The  author  was  introduced  by  the  editor  "with 
particular  pride  and  satisfaction." 

"He  is,  I  think,  a  not  altogether  unworthy 
successor,  after  a  long  interval,  of  one  who  gave 
to  the  readers  of  this  periodical  the  at  first  un 
privileged  and  now  historical  narratives  of  the 
proceedings  of  Parliament  some  hundred  and 
thirty  years  ago." 

Thomas  Woodrow  Wilson  happened  to  pick  T 
up  this  volume  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  and  > 
to  turn  to  the  pages  occupied  by  "Men  and 
Manner  in  Parliament"  —  and  from  that  mo-    / 
ment  his  life-plan  was  fixed. 

It  was  an  era  of  brilliant  parliamentary  his 
tory.     There  were  giants  in  those  days:     John") 
Bright,    Disraeli,    Gladstone,    Earl    Granville,   ) 
Vernon  Harcourt  —  the  personnel  of  the  House 
of  Commons  had  never  been  more  picturesque, 


62  WOODROW  WILSON 

the  atmosphere  more  electrical.  The  "Member 
for  the  Chiltern  Hundreds,"  in  intimate  daily 
familiarity  with  the  parliamentary  scene  and  its 
actors,  wrote  in  a  style  of  delicious  charm  —  the 
leisurely  style  of  good-humored  banter  and 
elegant  trifling,  his  chatter  nevertheless  afford 
ing  withal  a  picture  of  unsurpassable  vividness, 
vivacity,  and  verity.  He  maple  to  live  before  the 
eye  the  figure  of  Bright,  coming  into  the  House 
with  his  chiseled  and  polished  ^witticisms  in  his 
pocket,  ready  for  setting  in  the  framework  of  a 
speech;  of  Gladstone,  a  marvel  of  verbal  resource 
fulness,  bewildering  when  (•as  usual)  he  wished 
to  bewilder,  clarifying  and  convincing  when  the 
time  for  clear  statement  had  come;  of  Disraeli, 
with  his  poisoned  sentences  spoken  to  the  ac 
companiment  of  bodily  jerks  (supposed  to  be 
gestures)  "graceful  as  the  waddling  of  a  duck 
across  a  stubble  field."  He  drew  unforgettable 
pictures  of  Mr.  Lowe,  Sir  James  Elphinston, 
"the  bo'sun,"  Mr.  Scoonfield,  with  his  anecdotes 
—  of  scores  of  others,  their  voices,  attitudes, 
their  very  collars.  Safe  behind  his  anonymity, 
there  was  no  personality,  no  measure,  no  method 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          63 

upon  which  "the  Member  for  the  Chiltern 
Hundreds"  hesitated  to  turn  his  keen  and  dis 
cerning  eye. 

It  will  be  news  to  Mr.  Wilson  that  the  Gentle 
man's  Magazine  contributor  was  Henry  W.  Lucy, 
who  later  created  for  Punch  the  character  of 
"Toby,  M.  P.,"  and  was  knighted  by  King 
Edward.  It  should  be  said,  however,  that  this 
inimitable  parliamentary  reporter  has  never 
since  quite  equaled  his  early  performance  as  the 
anonymous  successor  of  Doctor  Johnson. 

Nothing  could  have  better  served  to  awaken 
in  a  young  reader  a  sense  of  the  picturesqueness 
and  dramatic  interest  of  politics,  and  Mr.  Wilson 
has  said  to  the  writer  of  this  biography  that  no 
one  circumstance  did  more  to  make  public  life 
the  purpose  of  his  existence,  nor  more  to  deter 
mine  the  first  cast  of  his  political  ideas.     The 
young  man  turned  back  to  the  first  volume  of 
the    Gentleman9 s    Magazine.     Then,    going    to  j 
other  sources,  he  took  up  in  earnest  the  study  of  > 
English  political  history.     He  became  saturated    \ 
with  the  spirit  of  the  life  and  practices  of  the     / 
British  Parliament;  the  excitements  of  political   /, 


64  WOODROW  WILSON 

life  enchanted  him;  the  methods  of  high  debate 
impressed  themselves  upon  him,  and,  of  course, 
the  history  of  England  for  many  years  past 
became  as  familiar  to  him  as  that  of  his  own 
country. 

The  Lucy  articles  could  not  fail  to  reveal  that 
the  business  of  the  British  Empire  was  done  in 
public  by  men  who,  through  their  talents,  had 
risen  to  leadership  which  they  had  to  maintain 
in  daily  tournaments  before  the  whole  world. 
Wilson  was  almost  immediately  led  to  contrast 
the  British  system  of  government  with  that  of 
America,  his  conclusion  being  that  the  dramatic 
and  swiftly  responsive  English  system  was  in 
finitely  the  better. 

This  subject  —  the  methods  of  democratic 
government  —  the  comparative  merits  of  open 
parliamentary  and  private  committee  govern 
ment  —  became  a  theme  around  which  W7ilson's 
mind  continued  to  revolve  for  many  years,  as 
we  shall  see. 

The  characteristic  thing  about  Wilson's  under 
graduate  days  at  Princeton  was  that  his  work 
was  done  in  practical  independence  of  the  ordi- 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          65 

nary  college  routine  of  instruction  —  at  which 
even  in  those  days  he  was  sometimes  heard  to 
rail.     His  mind  had  now  settled  definitely  upon 
a  public  career  —  the  impulse  he  had  received  P 
from  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  had  been  deci-  \ 
sive.     His  purpose  in  Princeton  was  henceforth' 
the  clear  and  single  one  of  preparing  himself  for 
public  life.     Always  he  was  reading,  .thinking, 
and  writing  about  government.     He  was  in  no 
sense  a  "dig,"  and  seemed  to  have  no  particular 
ambition  in  the  college  studies,  but  he  devoted 
every  energy  to  the  furnishing  and  the  training 
of  his  mind  as  an  authority  on  government,  the 
history  of  government,  and  leadership  in  public 
life.     He  began  to  practise  the  elective  system^ 
ten  years  before  Princeton  did.     He  had  an  eye 
keen  for  what  he  needed,  and  to  its  pursuit  he 
gave  all  his  energies.     There  was  nothing  casual 
nor  accidental  in  his  work.     His  study  was  bent  / 
on  government,  the  history  of  various  attempts  j 
in  it,  and  the  theory  of  it,  and  the  lives  of  polit 
ical  leaders.     To  this  he  added  assiduous  prac 
tice  in  writing  and  extemporaneous  speaking; 
the  seeking  for  skill  in  expression  and  readiness 


66  WOODROW  WILSON 

in  debate.     He  followed  this  course  from  the 
very  start  and  kept  it  up  until  the  day  he  grad 
uated.      His  most  intimate  classmate,  Robert 
Bridges,  says  of  him  that  his  college  career  was 
remarkable  for  the  "confident  selection"  of  his 
work,  and  his  "easy  indifference"  to  all  subjects 
not  directly  in  line  with  his  purpose.     His  busi 
ness  in  college  apparently  was  to  train  his  mind 
to  do  what  he  wanted  it  to  do  —  and  what  he 
f\    wanted  it  to  do  he  knew.     He  had  already  made 
M    himself  proficient  in  stenography,  finding  it  of 
2    great  value  in  making  digests  of  what  he  read 
/     and   quotations  which   would    otherwise    have 
V  occupied  him  long. 

Princeton  was  not  then  remarkable  in  the 
teaching  of  English;  the  head  of  the  English 
Department,  Professor  Murray,  was  himself  a 
clear  writer  and  speaker,  yet  without  special 
grace  of  style.  But  the  men  trained  themselves, 
in  literary  societies.  The  body  of  the  students 
was  divided  into  two  "Halls,"  so-called  secret 
societies,  but  really  debating  clubs  —  the  Ameri 
can  Whig  Society  and  the  Cliosophic  Society. 
Wilson  belonged  to  Whig  Hall,  an  organization 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON  67 

whose  constitution  had  been  written  by  James 
Madison. 

Here  the  young  man  was  in  his  glory.  He 
entered  eagerly  into  its  traditions  and  became 
almost  immediately  one  of  its  leading  spirits. 
To  reading  and  writing  day  and  night  upon  his 
favorite  themes  he  began  to  add  practice  in 
elocution.  One  of  his  classmates  troubled  with 
a  weak  throat,  who  was  sent  down  to  Potter's 
woods  to  practise  exercises,  often  saw  Wilson 
in  another  part  of  the  woods  declaiming  from  a 
volume  of  Burke.  On  vacations  he  was  known 
to  spend  a  good  deal  of  time  reading  aloud  and 
declaiming  in  his  father's  church  at  Wilmington. 
Another  debating  society  organized  by  Wilson 
himself,  called  the  Liberal  Debating  Club,  was 
fashioned  after  the  British  Parliament,  a  group 
of  the  members  representing  the  government, 
and  being  obliged  to  maintain  the  confidence  of 
the  chamber  or  go  out  of  power. 

Wilson  does  not  appear  as  a  great  prize 
winner.  His  record  does  not  compare  with  that 
of  Elsing,  Bridges,  or  Halsey.  Elsing  was  the 
first  freshman  speaker,  the  first  sophomore 


C8  WOODROW  WILSON 

orator,  the  first  junior  orator  and  winner  of  the 
junior  debate.  However,  Wilson  did  score  as 
second  sophomore  orator  in  the  Whig  Hall 
contest  and  was  one  of  the  literary  men  of  the 
class,  an  oration  on  Cobden  and  an  essay  on 
Lord  Chatham  (the  elder  Pitt)  being  especially 
recorded.  Chatham,  Burke,  Brougham,  and 
Bagehot  were  his  great  favorites  —  Burke  first 
of  all.  From  Brougham  it  may  be  conjectured 
he  acquired  his  taste  for  a  finished  peroration  — 
though  the  fancy  never  led  him  into  the  extrav 
agances  of  the  Irish  orator,  who  one  day  ended 
a  speech  with  an  ecstatic  prayer,  for  which  he 
fell  on  his  knees  —  a  posture  from  which  his 
friends  dragged  him  in  an  unseemly  struggle, 
attributing  his  collapse  to  over-indulgence  in 
the  port  with  which  he  was  accustomed  to  prime 
himself.  Macaulay  held  the  student's  attention 
for  a  while,  but  he  soon  became  critical  of  the 
historian's  overloaded  style. 

Connected  with  the  two  big  prizes  of  the 
college  are  two  stories  which  throw  light  upon 
Wilson's  character  as  a  student.  The  English 
Literary  Prize  of  $125  his  classmates  thought 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          69 

that  Wilson  might  easily  win;  but  when  he 
learned  that  to  compete  meant  to  spend  time 
studying  Ben  Jonson  and  two  plays  of  Shakes 
peare,  he  refused  to  go  into  it,  saying  he  had  no 
time  to  spare  from  the  reading  that  interested 
him. 

The  other  big  prize,  that  of  the  Lynde  Debate, 
had  been  founded  the  year  of  Wilson's  entrance 
to  college,  and  he  had  undoubtedly  looked  for 
ward  to  winning  it,  throughout  his  course.  The 
Lynde  was  an  extemporaneous  discussion  par 
ticipated  in  by  three  representatives  from  each 
of  the  two  Halls.  The  Halls'  representatives 
were  thus  chosen:  a  subject  was  proposed  by  a 
committee  and  candidates  were  required  to  argue 
on  either  side  as  was  determined  by  lot.  By 
universal  consent  W7ilson  was  now  the  star  de 
bater  of  the  WTiig  Society.  He  was  quite  in  a 
class  by  himself,  and  there  was  no  doubt  in  any 
body's  mind  that  he  would  represent  the  Hall 
and  win  the  prize.  The  subject  for  the  pre 
liminary  debate  in  W7hig  Hall  was  "Free-Trade 
versus  Protection."  Wilson  put  his  hand  into 
the  hat  and  drew  out  a  slip  which  required  him 


70  WOODROW  WILSON 

to  argue  in  favor  of  "Protection."  He  tore  up 
the  slip  and  refused  to  debate.  He  was  a  con 
vinced  and  passionate  free-trader,  and  nothing 
under  heaven,  he  swore,  would  induce  him  to 
advance  arguments  in  which  he  did  not  believe. 
"Bob"  Bridges  became  Whig  Hall's  representa 
tive —  and  lost  to  "Wood"  Halsey,  Clio's  man 
-  who  attributes  his  success  to  the  fact  that  an 
opponent  who  would  have  vanquished  him  was 
oversensitive. 

It  will  not  be  supposed  that  life  was  all  work 
even  for  this  rather  serious-minded  youth. 

Princeton  was  famous  for  the  pranks  of  its 
students.  On  one  occasion,  they  had  taken  a 
donkey  to  the  cupola  of  Nassau  Hall.  Every 
class  considered  itself  disgraced  unless  it  had 
made  way  with  the  clapper  of  the  college  bell. 
There  was  a  cane-rush  between  freshmen  and 
sophomores.  The  '78  class  wore  the  mortar 
board;  the  '79's  did  not.  Wilson  ridiculed 
'78's  head-gear. 

Wilson  lived  first  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Wright. 
One  of  his  classmates,  "Bob"  McCarter,  who 
also  lived  at  Mrs.  Wright's,  tells  of  a  certain 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          71 

evening  when  the  two  were  engaged  in  Wilson's 
study  in  a  quiet  game  of  euchre,  a  forbidden 
pastime  in  those  days.  On  the  table,  as  it  hap 
pened,  lay  a  Bible.  A  knock  was  heard  at  the  \ 
door;  McCarter  swiftly  swept  the  cards  out  of 
sight  under  the  table  and  went  to  the  door. 
Before  he  opened  it,  he  turned  his  head  for  a 
moment,  the  thought  flashing  over  him  that  the 
conscientious  Wilson  might  have  put  the  cards 
back  in  plain  view  on  the  table,  but  what  he 
saw  was  —  Wilson  reading  the  Bible. 

It  was  the  time  of  the  great  popularity  of 
"Pinafore"  and  the  strains  of  "My  Little  Butter 
cup,"  and  "What!  Never?"  were  all  the  go. 
Doctor  Greene  of  the  Princeton  Seminary  pos 
sessed  a  deep,  solemn  voice.  One  day  in 
chapel  he  gave  out  unctuously  the  hymn  con 
taining  the  well-known  stanza: 

That  soul  though  all  hell  should  endeavor  to  shake 
I'll  never,  no  never,  no  never  forsake! 

But  the  effect  was  somewhat  spoiled  by  an  ir 
reverent  voice  in  the  rear  of  the  chapel :  "  What ! 
never?" 


72  WOODROW  WILSON 

Fraternities  were  not  permitted  at  Princeton, 
but  the  college  had  plenty  of  organizations  of 
every  possible  variety  and  description  —  "Cy 
clops,"  "The  Potato  Bugs,"  "The  Princeton  Gas 
Company."  Wilson  belonged  to  none  besides 
the  "Whig,"  his  little  debating  circle,  and  an 
eating  club,  whose  members  called  themselves 
"The  Alligators." 

When  Witherspoon  Hall  was  finished,  Wilson 
moved  into  it.  His  room  was  7,  west.  At  this 
time  it  is  recorded  that  he  weighed  156  pounds 
and  stood  five  feet  eleven. 

While  without  particular  inclination  or  ability 
in  athletics  —  and  while  back  in  '75-'79  athletics 
did  not  play  the  part  in  college  life  that  it  now 
plays  —  Woodrow  Wilson  was  a  leader  in  the 
encouragement  of  sports,  and  in  '78-'79  was 
president  of  the  Athletic  Committee,  at  another 
time  of  the  Baseball  Association. 

His  classmates  and  schoolmates  concur  in 
describing  the  college  lad  as  a  fellow  of  dignity, 
yet  perfectly  democratic.  The  picture  is  that 
of  a  youth  of  unusual  mental  and  moral  maturity 
—  a  well-poised  fellow,  never  a  roisterer,  yet 


'A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON          73 

always  full  of  life  and  interested  in  everything 
that  was  going  on.  He  was  popular  —  of  that 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  young  man  had  a 
certain  charm  of  mariner  and  sweetness  of  soul 
that  forbade  anybody's  disliking  him,  although 
he  was  generally  felt  to  be  "a  little  above  the 
crowd."  He  never  belonged  to  a  clique.  He 
was  a  normal  college  boy,  not  a  prig  nor  a  "dig"  \ 
nor  a  "grind,"  but  a  healthy,  hearty,  all-around 
chap,  interested  in  everything  that  was  going 
on,  mingling  with  everybody  —  though  cherish-  J 
ing  some  particular  friendships  that  have  en 
dured. 

The  years  passed.  Recitations  were  attended, 
examinations  duly  passed.  The  library  yielded 
up  its  secrets  to  the  mind;  life  in  the  little  com 
monwealth  of  young  men  matured  the  char 
acter;  intercourse  with  kindred  spirits  awakened 
generous  enthusiasms.  In  '77  Tom  Wilson  went 
on  the  board  of  editors  of  the  Princetonian, 
the  college  newspaper,  then  a  bi-weekly.  In 
'78  he  became  its  managing  editor.  Under  his 
management  it  continued  about  as  before  —  not 
overwhelmingly  interesting  to  the  outsider, 


74  WOODROW  WILSON 

though  here  and  there  is  discernible  a  little 
brightness  scarcely  to  be  found  in  earlier  issues. 
Occasionally  we  discover  a  satirical  note  like 
this: 

A  literary  meeting  was  held  at  Doctor  McCoshY  res 
idence  on  the  evening  of  the  13th.  Mr.  David  Stewart 
read  a  paper  on  Ethics.  The  discussion  was  interesting. 

A  department  headed  "Here  and  There"  was 
the  Princetonian's  best  feature.  Once  in  a  while 
its  writer  broke  into  rhyme  —  not  always  so 
tragically  sad  as  this: 

"I  will  work  out  a  rhyme 
If  I  only  have  time/* 

Said  the  man  of  "Here  and  There," 
So  he  tried  for  a  while: 
Result  —  a  loose  pile 

Of  his  beautiful  golden  hair. 

During  his  senior  year  Wilson  threw  into  the 
form  of  a  closely  reasoned  essay  the  chief  results 
of  his  thinking  on  the  subject  of  the  American 
contrasted  with  the  British  system  of  govern 
ment.  This  article  he  sent  to  what  was  regarded 
as  the  most  serious  magazine  then  published  in 


A  STUDENT  AT  PRINCETON  75 

America,  and  it  was  immediately  accepted  for 
publication.  The  author  was  twenty-two  years 
old  and  an  undergraduate. 

In  the  files  of  the  International  Review,  issue 
of  August,  1879,  may  be  found  an  article  en 
titled  "Cabinet  Government  in  the  United 
States,"  signed  by  Thomas  W.  Wilson.  It  was 
an  impeachment  of  government  by  "  a  legislature 
which  is  practically  irresponsible,"  and  a  plea 
for  a  reformed  method  under  which  Congress 
should  be  again  made  responsible  and  swiftly 
responsive  in  some  such  way  as  is  the  British 
Parliament.  The  author's  quarrel  is  with  the 
practice  of  doing  all  the  important  work  of 
Congress  in  secret  committees.  Secrecy,  he 
says,  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  all  corruption 
and  evil  flourishes.  "Congress  should  legislate 
as  if  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  country,  in 
open  and  free  debate."  (These  words  were 
written  thirty-two  years  ago.)  He  attributes  \ 
the  growth  of  the  committee  system  to  the  lack  C 
of  leaders  in  Congress,  and  his  plan  for  the  ( 
creation  of  leaders  is  that  of  giving  Cabinet 
ministers  a  seat  in  Congress.  He  quotes  Justice 


76  WOODROW  WILSON 

'    Story  to  the  effect  that  the  heads  of  departments, 
even  if  they  were  not  allowed  to  vote,  might 
without  danger  be  admitted  to  participate  in 
\      Congressional  debates.  Wilson  argues  with  much 
\    ingenuity  that  the  method  he  urges  is  the  ideal 
S  one  for  the  insuring  of  a  strong  Congress  and  a 
/    strong  Cabinet,  for  securing  the  attention  of  the 
j      country  (the  possibilities  of  Congressional  debate 
\     and  the  fall  of  the  Cabinet  being  dramatic),  and 
\  for  the  insurance  of  the  greatest  possible  amount 
of  publicity. 

With  this  achievement  of  breaking  into  a 
high-class  magazine,   Woodrow  Wilson   closed 
his  undergraduate  days  at  Princeton.     During 
his  senior  year  he  had  concluded  that  the  best 
path  to  a  public  career  lay  through  the  law.     In 
the  autumn,  therefore,  he  matriculated  in  the 
law  department  of  the  University  of  Virginia, 
\  that  seat  of  liberal  learning  organized  by  Thomas 
Jefferson. 


CHAPTER  V 

STILL    STUDYING    LAW    AND    POLITICS 

WAR  and  Reconstruction  had  reduced  the 
number  of  students  at  Charlottesville 
to  328  in  the  session  of  1879-80,  but 
War  and  Reconstruction  had  not  lowered  Vir 
ginia's  lofty  standard  either  of  scholarship  or  of 
honor.  Wilson's  life  here  was  in  many  respects 
a  repetition  of  that  at  Princeton.  Here,  too,  he 
immediately  took  his  place  as  a  leader.  The 
law  school  men  were  in  close  fellowship  with 
the  undergraduates  of  "  Virginia."  Study  was 
rather  more  necessary  than  at  Princeton  in  those 
days;  a  man  had  to  work  to  pass  his  examina 
tions —  these,  by  the  way,  were  conducted  on 
the  "honor  plan."  Still,  there  was  a  gay  set 
as  well  as  a  steady  set,  and  Wilson  had  friends 
among  both  sets. 

Sports  were  engaged  in  to  the  extent  of  an 
occasional  baseball  game  among  the  students 

77 


7S  WOODROW  WILSON 

or  with  a  nine  from  a  neighboring  town,  a  foot 
race  or  two  in  the  autumn,  and  some  boat-racing 
on  the  little  Rivanna  River  in  the  spring.     There 
was  also  a  gymnasium,  and  prizes  were  given  the 
proficient;    intercollegiate    contests    were    un 
known.     Wilson  played  a  little  baseball  and  took 
long  walks  through  the  pleasant  country  lying 
about,  often  alone,  though  sometimes  with  a 
favorite  companion.     At  Princeton  Greek-letter 
fraternities  were  illegal,  but  they  existed  with  the 
v    approval  of  the  faculty  at  the  University  of 
S  Virginia,  and  on  October  25,  1879,  Wilson  was 
'    initiated  into  the  Phi  Kappa  Psi. 

He  joined  the  chapel  choir  and  the  glee  club. 
The  latter  circle  of  harmonious  spirits,  directed 
by  Duncan  Emmett,  now  and  for  some  years 
past  a  practising  physician  of  New  York  City, 
made  serenading  excursions  in  the  country 
'round  about,  two  or  three  times  a  week,  wind 
ing  up  its  pleasure-imparting  career  with  a 
Grand  Concert  in  the  Town  Hall.  Wilson  many 
a  night  stumbled  along  the  rocky  roads  with  his 
fellow  glee-men  to  arrive  at  last  under  the 
balcony  of  some  damsel  and  lift  his  fine  tenor 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       79 

voice    in    "She    sleeps,  my  lady  sleeps,"   and 
"Speed  away!"     At  the  Grand  Concert,  which 
was  given  on  the  evening  of  the  Final  Ball,  a 
brilliant  audience  that  crowded  the  hall  beheld 
the  prize-orator  and  prize-writer  step  down  to 
the  footlights  and  render  a  touching  tenor  solo.  \ 
Wilson  is  best  remembered  as  a  singer,  however,  / 
by  the  thrilling  effect  with  which  he  usually  ' 
achieved  the  high  note  near  the  end  of  "The  ' 
Star  Spangled  Banner." 

Wilson  did  a  good  deal  of  writing  while  at 
Charlottesville.  From  the  road  in  front  of 
"Dawson's  Row"  passersby  would  see  him 
sitting  at  the  window  in  the  southeast  corner  of 
"House  F,"  darkly  engaged  with  an  ink-bottle, 
out  of  which  he  had  conjured,  before  a  year  was 
up,  the  Writer's  Prize. 

In  March,  1880,  the  University  Magazine 
printed  an  article  by  him  on  John  Bright;  in  the 
following  month  another  on  Gladstone.  The 
young  man's  mind  still  ran,  as  it  had  run  at 
Princeton,  on  the  personality  of  the  great  po 
litical  leaders. 

The  John  Bright  article  was  really  a  version 


80  WOODROW  WILSON 

of  an  oration  which  Wilson  was  delivering  that 
month.  So  great  had  his  reputation  grown  in 
six  months  that  there  was  a  considerable  demand 
from  outside  the  university  for  admission,  and 
the  occasion  was  thrown  open  to  the  public. 

At  Charlottesville,  as  at  Princeton,  the  stu 
dent-body  was  divided  into  two  literary  and 
debating  societies:  the  Washingtonian  and  the 
Jeffersonian  —  in  the  common  tongue,  "Wash" 
and  "Jeff."  The  fortunes  of  each  alternately 
waxed  and  waned;  "Jeff"  was  the  stronger  in 
1879,  and  Wilson  joined  it.  His  talents  at  once 
won  recognition,  but  he  found  a  competitor  to 
respect  in  another  "Jeff"  man,  William  Cabell 
Bruce,  of  Charlotte  County,  Va.,  a  young  orator 
of  extraordinary  ability.  He  was  later  presi 
dent  of  the  Maryland  Senate,  and  is  now  presi 
dent  of  the  Woodrow  Wilson  Association  of 
Maryland. 

The  chief  annual  event  at  Charlottesville  was 
a  debating  contest  in  the  Jeffersonian  Society, 
at  which  two  gold  medals  were  awarded,  one  for 
debating,  the  other  for  oratorical  ability.  The 
subject  was:  "Is  the  Roman  Catholic  in  the 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       81 

United  States  a  menace  to  American  institu 
tions?"  In  the  contest,  April  1880,  in  which 
Bruce  and  Wilson  (he  taking  the  negative)  par 
ticipated,  Bruce  was  given  the  debater's  medal, 
while  the  orator's  prize  went  to  Wilson.  The 
opinion  of  pretty  nearly  everybody,  aside  from 
the  judges,  was  that  the  award  should  have 
been  reversed.  Bruce  was  ornate  in  style; 
Wilson  simple,  direct  and  logical. 

In  a  wholly  different  vein  from  his  speeches 
in  the  " Jeff"  Society  w^as  one  notable  effort  in 
which  the  university's  favorite  appeared  when  he 
delivered  medals  to  the  winners  in  athletic 
games.  Having  agreed  to  make  this  presenta 
tion,  Wilson  was  very  much  exercised  as  to  what 
to  say  and  imparted  his  perplexity  to  an  inti 
mate  friend,  Richard  H.  Dabney  (now  dean  of 
Graduate  Studies  in  the  university).  Where- 
upon  Dabney,  who  was  in  a  merry  mood,  rattled 
off  two  pieces  of  nonsense  which  he  suggested 
would  about  suit  the  taste  of  the  audience  in  the 
gymnasium.  Neither  piece  contained  the  slight 
est  allusion  to  athletic  sports.  Yet  somehow  the 
orator  worked  them  in,  proclaiming  the  vie- 


82  WOODROW  WILSON 

tory  of  the  athletes  in  flesh -colored  tights  who 
stood  lined  before  him  in  the  verses: 

'Twas  in  the  gloaming,  by  the  fair  Wyoming, 
That  I  left  my  darling,  many  years  ago; " 

And  memory  tender  brings  her  back  in  splendor 
With  her  cheeks  of  roses  and  her  brow  of  snow. 

But  where  in  thunder  is  she  now,  I  wonder? 

Oh,  my  soul,  be  quiet,  and,  my  sad  heart,  hush! 
Under  the  umbrella  of  another  fellow 

Ah !  I  think  I  see  her,  paddling  through  the  slush ! 

A  little  farther  along  in  the  oration  the  cheer 
ing  throng  listened  to  the  solemn  recital  of  this 
moving  sentiment: 

I  stood  upon  the  ocean's  briny  shore  and  with  a  fragile 
reed  I  wrote  upon  the  sand,  "Agnes,  I  love  thee!"  But 
the  mad  waves  rolled  by,  and  blotted  out  the  fair  impres 
sion.  Cruel  waves!  Treacherous  sands!  I'll  trust  you 
no  more.  But,  with  a  giant's  hand,  I'll  pluck  from  Nor 
way's  frozen  shore  her  tallest  pine  —  and  dip  its  top  into 
the  crater  of  Vesuvius  —  and  upon  the  high  and  burnished 
heavens  I'll  write,  "Agnes,  I  love  thee!"  and  I'd  like  to  see 
any  doggoned  wave  wash  that  out ! 

Dabney  was  a  good  deal  of  a  wag.  Among 
the  idiotic  songs  which  for  some  inscrutable 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       83 

reason  periodically  sweep  over  the  country  one 
of  the  silliest  was  the  favorite  in  1880.  Every 
body  will  recall  it: 

Whoa,  Emma!     Whoa,  Emma! 
You  put  me  in  such  a  dilemma  — 

although  few  will  recall  the  nature  of  the 
dilemma  from  which  the  victim  clamored  for 
relief.  On  one  occasion  Wilson  was  quoting 
the  lines  in  which  Hamlet,  after  speaking  of  the 
"customary  suits  of  solemn  black,"  worn  by 
mourners,  exclaims: 

"But  I  have  that  within  me  which  passeth  show; 
These,  but  the  trappings  —  the  suits  of  woe." 

No  sooner  had  he  uttered  the  final  "woe" 
than  Dabney  took  it  out  of  his  mouth  and  com 
pleted  it  with  an  uproarious  "Emma."  No 
Shakespeare  was  quoted  between  the  two  friends 
for  many  months. 

The  gymnasium  speech  represents  one  of  the 
few  occasions  in  which  the  young  student  bent 
very  far  from  his  dignity  in  public,  but  in  private 
he  fairly  bubbled  with  humor  and  wit,  and  was 


84  WOODROW  WILSON 

very  much  given  to  monkey  shines.  The  room 
in  "Dawson's  Row,"  and  that  in  "  West  Range" 
which  he  later  occupied,  were  the  scenes  not  only 
of  a  great  deal  of  hard  reading,  elevated  thought, 
and  serious  conversation,  but  also  of  a  great 
many  elaborate  jokes  and  abandoned  capers. 

As  he  had  done  at  Princeton,  Wilson  at  Char- 
lottesville  also  organized  a  smaller  group  of 
thinking  chaps  for  debate.  A  member  of  that 
group  remembers  Wilson's  unspeakable  disgust 
when  they  chose  as  the  subject  for  one  night's 
discussion  the  question  whether  there  be  any 
fundamental  difference  between  right  and  wrong. 
Wilson  was  secretary  of  the  "Jeff"  Society  dur 
ing  part  of  his  time  in  Charlottesville,  and  the 
records  kept  by  him  in  that  capacity  were  a 
model  of  neatness  and  accuracy. 

The^4aw  professors  £>£~4h€JIniversity  of  Vir 
ginia  wereTVIr.  Southall,  who  held  the  chaii  of 
international  and  common  law,  an  easy-going 
and  much -beloved  man,  and  Dr.  John  B.  Minor, 
who  taught  everything  else  in  the  course,  and 
was  in  fact,  the  college  of  law. 

Doctor   Minor   probablyinfluenced   Wilson 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       85 

more  than  did  any  other  teacherjbe^ever  had. 
He  was  indeed  an  able  ancTforceful  man,  a  really 
great  teacher,  who  grounded  his  pupils,  beyond 
all  possibility  of  ever  getting  adrift,  in  the  broad 
principles  of  law.  He  employed  in  class  a  text 
book  which  he  had  himself  written,  or,  rather, 
revised,  for  it  was  frankly  based  on  Blackstone 
as  that  legal  philosopher's  teaching  had  applica 
tion  in  the  United  States  and  especially  in  the 
state  of  Virginia.  Doctor  Minor  was  a  man  of 
impressive  presence  and  fine  face,  with  an  aris 
tocratic  nose,  at  the  extreme  tip  of  \vhich  he 
wore  pince-nez,  through  which  he  glanced  at 
his  roll-sheet.  He  used  the  Socratic  method, 
with  more  than  Socratic  sternness.  He  cate 
chised  and  he  grilled,  but  with  such  effective 
ness  that,  though  the  victim  writhed  —  the 
class  meanwhile  mentally  groaning  in  sympathy 
—  he  learned  never  to  forget  the  point  to  which 
the  professor  led  him.  Wilson's  seat  was  in 
the  front  row  at  the  Professor's  left  hand.  So 
popular,  despite  his  severity,  were  Doctor 
Minor's  courses,  that  it  was  a  saying  at 
Charlottesville  that,  if  Minor  were  to  an- 


86  WOODROW  WILSON 

nounce  an  "exam"  at  midnight,  a  man  had 
better  be  on  hand  at  eleven  o'clock  to  be  sure 
of  a  seat. 

As  a  young  man,  Wilson  suffered  much  from 
indigestion  —  an  ill  which  later  he  entirely 
outgrew.  Just  before  Christmas,  1880,  he  found 
himself  so  unwell  that  he  left  Charlottesville. 
The  next  year  he  spent  at  home  in  Wilmington, 
N.  C.,  nursing  his  health  and  reading. 

In  May,  1882,  Woodrow  Wilson  went  to 
Atlanta,  to  enter  on  the  practice  of  law.  At 
lanta  was  chosen  for  this  experiment  simply 
because  it  was  the  most  rapidly  growing  city  of 
the  South.  The  young  man  knew  nobody 
there.  He  went  to  live  at  the  boarding-house 
of  Mrs.  Boylston,  born  Dray  ton,  and  a  member 
of  that  old  South  Carolina  family,  on  Peach  tree 
Street.  Here  he  met  another  young  man,  like 
Mmself  a  stranger  in  the  city,  whither  he  too  had 
come  to  practise  law  —  Edward  Ireland  Renick. 
The  two  agreed  on  a  partnership;  on  mutual 
inquiry,  Renick  proved  to  be  slightly  the  older, 
so  that  the  shingle  was  lettered  "Renick  & 
Wilson."  It  was  hung  out  of  the  window  of  a 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       87 

room  on  the  second  floor,  facing  the  side  street, 
of  the  building  48  Marietta  Street. 

Atlanta  litigants  did  not  rush  en  masse  to 
48  Marietta  Street.  In  fact,  they  never  came. 
The  brilliant  legal  victories  for  which,  no  doubt, 
Messrs.  Renick  and  Wilson  were  competent 
were  never  won.  Atlanta  seemed  to  prefer 
lawyers  whom  it  had  known. 

Wilson's  sole  idea  had  been  to  use  the  law  as 
a  stepping-stone  to  a  political  career;  most  of 
the  public  men  of  the  South  had  come  from  the 
ranks  of  the  law.  In  eighteen  months  in  At 
lanta  he  learned  that  it  was  impossible  for  a 
man  without  private  means  to  support  himself 
long  enough  in  law  to  get  into  public  life;  im 
possible,  certainly,  to  establish  a  practice  with 
out  giving  up  all  idea  of  study  and  writing  not 
strictly  connected  with  the  profession.  The 
law  was  a  jealous  mistress.  He  had  begun  writ 
ing  a  book  on  Congressional  Government,  and 
he  found  the  work  of  its  composition  full  of  joy. 
With  joy  he  found  he  could  not  contemplate 
years  of  effort  to  further  the  interests  of  clients 
under  the  capricious  and  illogical  statutes  of 


88  WOODROW  WILSON 

Georgia,  interpreted  by  a  Supreme  Court  whom 
he  could  not  then  look  up  to  as  masters  in  the 
law. 

But  the  Atlanta  experiment  was  not  without 
its  great  good  fortune: 

During  the  summer  of  1883  Mr.  Wilson  found 
time  to  make  what  turned  out  to  be  a  momen 
tous  visit.  His  old  playmate  and  cousin,  Jessie 
Woodrow  Bones,  with  whom  he  had  played 
Indian  on  the  Sand  Hills  near  Augusta,  was  now 
living  in  Rome,  Ga.  Mr.  Bones  had  started  a 
branch  of  his  business  at  Rome,  and,  finding  the 
Georgia  town  the  prettier  and  more  agreeable 
place,  had  moved  his  family  there.  To  Rome 
had  come  also  another  family  with  whom  the 
Wilsons  had  been  intimate  in  Augusta  —  the 
Axsons.  The  Axsons  were  a  Georgia  lowlands 
family;  the  Rev.  S.  Edward  Axson's  father  was 
a  distinguished  clergyman  in  Savannah,  and  his 
wife's  father,  the  Rev.  Nathan  Hoyt,  was  long 
pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Athens,  Ga. 
/  The  calls  upon  his  time  not  being  entirely  oc- 
7  cupying,  as  has  been  hinted,  young  Wilson  went 

(    to  Rome  to  see  his  cousin  —  arid  stayed  to  see 
\J 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       81 

more  of  Miss  Ellen  Louise  Axson.  The  meeting 
was  on  the  piazza  of  the  Bones  home  in  East 
Rome.  To  be  accurate,  it  was  not  quite  the 
couple's  first  meeting:  he  had  been  a  passionate 
admirer  of  the  lady  when  he  was  a  boy  of  seven, 
and  she  was  a  baby.  The  sentiment  of  those 
days,  beyond  the  recollection  of  either,  revived. 
He  took  her  home  that  evening  —  she  lived  in 
Rome  across  the  river.  She  must  have  been 
captivating,  for,  as  he  came  back  across  the 
bridge,  he  clenched  his  hand  and  took  a  silent 
oath  that  Ellen  Louise  Axson  should  one  day  be 
his  wife. 

Which  also  in  due  time  came  to  pass. 

They  had  seen  each  other  eleven  times  before  ) 
he  had  persuaded  her  to  say  "Yes."     There  was 
no  idea  of  an  immediate  marriage.     Already, 
perceiving  that  the  practice  of  law  was  not  the 
path  for  him,  he  had  settled  upon  the  plan 
going  to  Johns  Hopkins  University  to  spend  two 
or  three  years  more  studying  the  science  of 
government. 

The  partnership  of  Renick  &  Wilson  was  dis 
solved.     The  young  man  to  whom  the  people 


be     a 

•Y 


90  WOODROW  WILSON 

of  Atlanta  gave  so  little  encouragement,  but  who 
had  won  what  made  him  inestimably  happier 
than  anything  else  Georgia  could  have  given 
him,  went  north  in  September.  About  the  same 
time  Miss  Axson  too  went  to  New  York  to 
develop  her  already  recognized  talents  in  paint 
ing,  as  a  member  of  the  Art  Students'  League. 

The  next  two  years  of  Woodrow  Wilson's  life 
were  spent  at  Johns  Hopkins  University  as  a 
student  of  history  and  political  economy.  The 
professors  who  mainly  directed  his  studies  were 
the  late  Herbert  B.  Adams,  historian,  and 
RichardJT.Ely  (now  of  the  University  of  Wis 
consin),  economist.  The  chief  social  life  of  the 
university  (which  is  a  place  of  graduate  study 
chiefly  and  is  without  dormitories  or  "college 
life")  was  in  the  weekly  seminars,  in  which  per 
haps  thirty  men  gathered  to  read  and  discuss 
papers  under  the  direction  of  a  professor. 

Here  Wilson  was  one  of  an  unusually  inter 
esting  group,  which  included  Albert  Shaw  and 
E.  R.  L.  Gould,  John  Franklin  Jameson,  the 
historian;  Arthur  Yager,  now  president  of 
Georgetown  College,  Kentucky,  and  Thomas 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       91 

Dixon,  who  writes  novels.  (Dixon  was  not  long 
at  Johns  Hopkins.)  Professor  Ely  was  just  back 
from  Europe,  wrhere  he  had  been  studying  social 
ism  and  had  fallen  under  the  influence  of  certain 
German  "socialists  of  the  chair."  He  gave  a) 
course  on  the  history  of  French  and  German 
socialism. 

The  advantages  enjoyed  at  Johns  Hopkins 
by  Wilson  lay,  however,  not  so  much  in  the  hear 
ing  of  lectures  as  in  the  opportunity  of  making 
researches  under,  and  working  with,  Ely  and 
Adams  and  his  fellow-students.  Here  he  got  a 
valuable  impulse  in  the  direction  of  the  careful 
and  exact  ascertaining  of  facts.  Though  always 
priding  himself  on  dealing  with  actualities,  Wil 
son  was  never  a  grubber  after  facts  —  and  in 
deed  never  became  one,  as  Jameson,  for  instance, 
did.  But  he  undoubtedly  did  get  here  a  train 
ing  that  balanced  the  natural  tendency  of  his 
mind  to  work  from  within  outward,  and  saved 
him  from  the  consequences  which  might  have 
followed  the  ease  of  expression  he  had  attained. 

He  remained  two  years,  the  second  year  as 
holder  of  the  Historical  Fellowship.  The  time 


92  WOODROW  WILSON 

was  brightened  by  occasional  visits  to  New 
York,  and  his  fiancee,  and  to  Philadelphia, 
where  lived  an  uncle  of  hers  whom  she  some 
times  visited. 

There  was  no  glee  club  at  Johns  Hopkins,  but 
Wilson  set  straightaway  about  organizing  one, 
with  the  cooperation  of  Charles  Levermore  (now 
president  of  Adelphi  College).  Levermore's 
singing  voice  was  as  low  as  Wilson's  was  high. 
Prof.  Charles  S.  Morris,  of  the  department  of 
Latin  and  Greek,  one  of  the  most  kindhearted 
of  men,  consented  to  act  as  president  of  the 
club,  and  invited  them  to  meet  at  his  house 
once  a  month  for  an  evening  of  social  enjoyment. 
Every  member  of  the  glee  club  —  to  which  be 
longed  not  only  Shaw,  Gould,  and  Yager,  but 
Davis  R.  Dewey,  Edward  T.  Ingle,  David  T. 
Day,  B.  J.  Ramage,  Charles  Warren,  and  other 
men  who  have  made  themselves  eminent  —  re 
members  the  charming  hospitality  of  the  Mor 
rises  and  the  good  fellowship  and  gay  spirits  of 
the  remarkable  group  of  students  whom  they 
entertained,  or  were  entertained  by.  When  it 
was  proposed  to  give  a  concert  at  Hopkins  Hall 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       93 

and  charge  for  admission  in  order  to  pay  some 
expense  of  the  organization,  the  grave  gentle 
men  who  at  the  time  presided  over  the  destinies 
of  the  university  demurred.  President  Gilman 
offered  to  donate  the  necessary  money  provided 
the  club  would  give  its  concert  without  admis 
sion  fee.  In  the  slight  controversy  that  followed 
Wilson  appeared  as  an  insurgent,  protesting  that 
the  glee  club  had  its  dignity  to  consider  as  well 
as  had  the  university.  The  concert  was  given 
as  originally  planned,  and  no  one  felt  that  the 
dignity  of  the  university  suffered  in  the  least 
from  the  performance.  The  picture  of  this 
group  of  young  men  still  hangs  in  a  conspicuous 
place  in  the  rooms  of  the  Historical  Seminary, 
where  its  organization  originated,  and  to  which 
many  of  its  members  in  later  years  returned  to 
lecture. 

One  piece  of  writing  that  Wilson  did  at  this 
period,  a  study  of  Adam  Smith  (not  yet,  you  see, 
had  he  wearied  of  studying  political  personal 
ities),  was  recognized  by  all  as  exceptional 
in  felicity  and  power  of  expression.  It  was 
given  magazine  publication  and  later  gave 


94  WOODROW  WILSON 

the  title  to  a  volume  of  essays  —  "An  Old 
Master." 

Early  in  1885  was  completed  and  published  — 
the  result  of  the  suggestion  made  by  the  perusal 
of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  articles  ten  years 
before,  and  of  constant  thought  and  study  ever 
since  —  a  book,  "  Congressional  Government. 
A  Study  of  Government  by  Committee,  by 
Woodrow  Wilson."  It  was  the  first  account  of 
/  the  actual  working  of  the  Constitution  of  the 

United  States;  an  inspection  of  our  Government, 

\ 

not  as  it  is  theoretically  constituted,  but  as  it 
actually  works. 

The  book  met  with  instant  success.  A  serious 
work  seldom  makes  a  sensation,  and  that  word 
would  be  too  strong  to  apply  to  the  impression 
produced  by  "Congressional  Government,"  but 
it  is  quite  true  that  it  received  an  enthusiastic 
reception  at  the  hands  of  all  interested  in  public 
matters.  Of  its  merits  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
Mr.  James  Bryce,  in  the  preface  to  "The  Ameri 
can  Commonwealth,"  acknowledged  his  obliga 
tion  to  Woodrow  Wilson. 

It  was  a  great  moment  in  the  life  of  the  young 


STUDYING  LAW  AND  POLITICS       95 

man  —  indeed  a  great  moment  for  two  young 
persons.  Success  like  this  meant  that  life  was 
at  last  to  begin.  On  the  heels  of  the  fame  won 
by  "Congressional  Government"  came  invita 
tions  to  several  college  chairs.  There  was  more 
work  still  to  be  done  for  a  Ph.D.  But  the  Johns 
Hopkins  faculty  was  to  accept  the  book  as  a 
doctor's  thesis,  and  the  author  accepted  one  of 
the  calls  —  that  from  Bryn  Mawr,  which  wanted 
him  to  come  as  associate  in  history  and  political 
economy. 

Woodrow  Wilson  and  Ellen  Louise  Axson  were  \ 
married  at  her  grandfather's  house  in  Savannah,  J 
on  June  24,  1885.  In  the  autumn  they  came  to  | 
the  pretty  Welsh-named  village  on  the  "Main  / 
Line"  near  Philadelphia,  and  a  new  chapter  of  ' 
life  began. 


CHAPTER  VI 

"PROFESSOR"  WILSON 

A  SCHOOL  teacher's  existence  is  not,  in 
the  narration,  a  thrilling  story.  The 
first  seventeen  years  of  Woodrow  Wil 
son's  life  after  he  left  Johns  Hopkins  University 
were  spent  in  teaching.  They^  were  years  of 
usefulness  —  thousands  of  students  will  testify 
to  the  still  enduring  inspiration  they  owe  to 
them  and  to  him.  They  were  years  of  delight 
ful  living,  of  cultured  and  genial  companionship. 
For  leisurely  reading,  doubtless,  there  could  be 
set  down  here  a  volume  of  interesting  anecdote 
and  scholarly  banter  and  epigram,  of  pleasant 
fireside  reminiscences  of  savants  and  big-wigs, 
of  literary  gossip,  and  humors  of  the  lecture- 
room,  with  perhaps  a  bit  or  two  of  college 
scandal.  No  doubt  there  could  be  contrived  a 
narrative,  fascinating  to  patient  psychologists, 
of  the  mental  evolution  that  went  on  during 

96 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  97 

these  years.  For  the  purpose  of  this  biography, 
however,  the  point  is  that  they  led  up  to  one  of 
the  most  dramatic  and  significant  of  recent 
battles  for  the  cause  of  democracy  and  freedom 
and  prepared  a  man  for  leadership  in  a  bigger 
struggle,  the  battle-ground  of  which  is  the  soil 
of  the  American  Republic. 
Briefly,  then,  of  these  college  years: 
It  was  with  the  unrelinquished  purpose  of 
having  his  part  in  the  public  life  of  the  nation 
that  Woodrow  Wilson  entered  upon  the  profes 
sion  of  a  teacher  of  law  and  politics.  It  can 
hardly  be  said,  however,  that  his  first  position 
was  one  which  gave  promise  of  any  large  imme 
diate  influence  on  public  affairs.  A  number  of 
Johns  Hopkins  men,  on  the  opening  in  1885  of 
Bryn  Mawr  College,  accepted  as  their  first 
professorships  places  in  the  faculty  of  the  new 
institution  for  women;  the  vulgar  even  referred 
to  Bryn  Mawr  as  "  Johanna  Hopkins."  Some 
were  so  irreverent  as  to  suggest  that  the  young 
professors  were  "merely  trying  it  on  the  dog." 
Professor  Wilson,  though  called  to  Bryn  Mawr 
primarily  to  give  instruction  in  politics  and 


98  WOODROW  WILSON 

/  political  economy,  taught  a  good  deal  besides 
/  those  subjects;  classical  history,  and  the  history 
of  the  Renaissance  fell  to  him.  Perhaps  the 
V  young  ladies  profited  as  much  by  his  teaching  of 
these  latter  subjects  as  they  did  by  expositions 
of  political  science  which  could  not  have  come 
very  close  home  to  many  of  them.  His  lectures 
are  said  on  high  authority  to  have  been  "mar 
vels"  of  scholarship,  profoundly  impressing  his 
classes.  Yet  there  are  not  lacking  bits  of 
evidence  which  seem  to  betray  a  certain  failure 
to  take  the  idea  of  instructing  young  ladies  in 
politics  quite  as  seriously  as  some  of  the  other 
faculty  members  took  their  tasks.  The  higher 
education  of  women  was  not  then  a  thing  ac 
cepted;  'twas  rather  an  idea  to  be  vindicated, 
and  the  people  who  had  organized  and  who  ad 
ministered  Bryn  Mawr  were  in  the  mood  to  do 
a  good  job  of  vindication. 

Professor  Wilson  worked  very  hard  to  make 

his  lectures  interesting;  one  of  the  faculty  who 

lived  next  door  testifies  that  the  light  in  his  study 

I    window  was  invariably  burning  long  after  every- 

\body  else  had  gone  to  bed.     From  the  start-off 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  99 

of  his  professional  career  Mr.  Wilson  appears  to 
have  realized  the  necessity  of  imparting  vivacity 
and  reality  to  his  lectures;  there  is  some  ground 
to  suspect  that  the  intense  young  ladies  who  sat 
under  him  did  not  always  appreciate  the  lighter 
side  of  his  discourses.  At  all  events,  it  is  re 
membered  that  he  appeared  one  day  in  the 
lecture-room  without  the  long  mustache  which 
had  up  to  then  adorned  his  countenance  —  a 
sacrifice  which,  it  was  hinted,  he  had  made  in  the 
hope  of  being  hereafter  better  able  to  suggest  to 
his  classes  certain  delicacies  of  thought  and 
fancy  which  they  had  shown  little  sign  of  appre 
hending. 

Bryn  Mawr  College  at  the  beginning  con 
sisted  of  Taylor  Hall,  and  one  dormitory  — 
Merion.  It  opened  with  forty-three  students. 
Three  houses  at  the  edge  of  the  campus  were 
occupied  by  the  dean  and  professors,  many  of 
the  latter  being  bachelors.  Later  Mr.  Wilson 
leased  a  pretty  cottage,  the  parsonage  of  the 
little  Baptist  Church  on  the  old  Gulf  Road,  in 
the  midst  of  a  lovely  countryside.  In  this,  their 
first  home,  the  Wilsons  took  great  pride  and 


100  WOODROW  WILSON 

satisfaction.  In  vacation  time  they  went  back 
South  among  old  friends.  It  was  in  the  South 
that  the  first  two  children  were  born. 

In  June,  1886,  Professor  Wilson  took  his  Ph.D. 
at  Johns  Hopkins,  the  university  accepting  as 
his  thesis  his  book  "  Congressional  Government." 
During  his  third  year  at  Bryn  Mawr,  Professor 
Wilson  accepted  a  lectureship  at  Johns  Hopkins; 
this  took  him  to  Baltimore  once  a  week  for 
twenty-five  weeks. 

Connection  between  the  school  where  Mr. 
Wilson  had  last  been  a  student  and  the  one  in 
which  he  was  first  a  teacher  was,  as  has  been 
said,  close.  Francis  E.  King  and  John  Carey 
Thomas,  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Johns 
Hopkins,  had  been  instrumental  in  drawing  up 
the  courses  of  study  on  the  "group  system," 
in  which  much  pride  was  justly  felt  at  the 
new  college.  Its  dean  was  Doctor  Thomas's 
daughter,  Miss  M.  Carey  Thomas,  who  con 
tinues  to-day,  since  President  Rhodes's  death, 
under  the  title  of  president,  to  administer  the 
institution.  Among  the  Hopkins  men  in  the 
faculty  were  E.  B.  Wilson,  a  celebrated  biologist, 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  :t6i 

now  at  Columbia  University;  Prof.  F.  S.  Lee, 
now  also  of  the  Columbia  faculty;  Prof.  Paul 
Shorey,  now  of  Chicago  University,  who  rep 
resented  the  literary  side  of  classical  study,  and 
E.  W.  Hopkins,  now  of  Yale,  a  man  of  contrast 
ing  spirit  and  interest,  who  taught  the  classics 
as  a  philologist. 

Social  life  at  Bryn  Mawr  was  most  agreeable. 
An  invitation  to  an  older  and  larger  institution 
was  nevertheless  not  to  be  declined;  ampler  op 
portunity  opened  in  a  school  attended  by  young 
men,  and  in  1888  Professor  Wilson  accepted  an  > 
election  to  the  chair  of  history  and  political  econ 
omy  at  Wesleyan  University,  Middletown,  Conn. 

Wesleyan  University  was  an  established  insti 
tution  with  its  course  of  study,  its  faculty,  and 
its  traditions  long  settled.  In  the  faculty  Mr. 
Wilson  found  a  number  of  men  of  marked  ability 
-  chief  among  them,  perhaps,  Prof.  Caleb  Win 
chester,  head  of  the  department  of  English. 
The  faculty  contained  strong  men  also  in  Dr. 
W.  O.  Atwater,  the  chemist,  and  Prof.  W.  North 
Rice. 


102  -WOODROW  WILSON 

The  university  is  most  fortunately  and  beau 
tifully  situated,  stretching  along  a  ridge  above 
the  Connecticut  Valley  and  overlooking  pleasing 
prospects.  Middletown  is  a  place  of  elms  and 
old  colonial  mansions.  The  Wilson  residence 
was  just  across  from  the  college  grounds,  look 
ing  out  over  the  valley.  Though  formally  under 
Methodist  control,  the  university  is  really  non- 
sectarian  and  liberal  in  the  best  sense.  It  was 
then  co-educational,  but  only  five  or  six  young 
women  were  at  that  time  in  each  class.  The 
student-body  was  made  up,  as  it  still  is,  of  likely 
young  fellows  from  what  we  might  describe  as 
the  middle  walks  of  life;  Wesley  an  was  not  a 
rich  man's  college. 

From  the  start,  Professor  Wilson's  courses 
were  extremely  popular.  And  well  indeed  they 
might  be;  for  New  England  had  rarely  heard 
such  instruction  as  was  given  in  the  lecture-room 
of  Wesleyan's  professor  of  history  and  political 
economy.  Wrhile  at  Middletown  he  continued 
his  lectureship  at  Johns  Hopkins;  now,  however, 
instead  of  going  down  once  a  week,  he  bunched 
his  twenty -five  lectures  in  a  month  of  vacation 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  103 

allowed  him  by  the  Wesleyan  trustees.  His 
fame  as  a  popular  lecturer  also  was  growing 
apace,  and  he  was  frequently  called  to  give  ad 
dresses  in  New  England  and  the  Eastern  States. 
It  was  while  at  Middletown  that  he  wrote  "The 
State,"  a  volume  which,  with  less  pretentious 
to  literary  form  than  his  other  work,  involved 
an  enormous  amount  of  labor. 

Mr.  Wilson  was  a  member  of  the  Athletic 
Committee  of  Wesleyan  and  took  the  keenest 
interest  in  the  college  sports.  One  student  of 
the  time  remembers  how  incensed  he  became  at 
the  limited  ambition  of  the  Wesleyan  boys  who, 
when  they  played  against  Yale,  were  satisfied 
only  to  keep  the  score  down.  "That's  no  am 
bition  at  all,"  he  used  to  cry.  "Go  in  and  win; 
you  can  lick  Yale  as  well  as  any  other  team. 
Go  after  their  scalps.  Don't  admit  for  a 
moment  that  they  can  beat  you."  Is  it  possible 
that  this  gallant  encouragement  drew  any  of  its 
warmth  from  the  traditional  hatred  of  Eli  and 
the  Tiger? 

Life  at  Middletown  was  pleasant.  But  Mr. 
Wilson's  growing  reputation  would  not  permit 


104  WOODROW  WILSON 

him  to  remain  there.  When  in  1890  the  chair 
of  jurisprudence  and  politics  in  Princeton  Col 
lege  became  vacant  through  the  death  of  Prof. 
Alexander  Johnson,  the  trustees  elected  to  it  the 
Princeton  graduate  who  had  so  quickly  distin 
guished  himself  as  a  student  of  politics. 

September,  1890,  then,  found  Woodrow  Wil 
son  again  domiciled  in  the  Jersey  collegiate  town 
which,  fifteen  years  before,  he  had  first  gazed 
'round  upon  with  the  eyes  of  a  raw  student  from 
the  South.  He  was  now  a  man  whose  renown  had 
begun  to  spread  in  the  world,  an  author,  a  public 
speaker  of  enviable  repute,  the  head  of  a  family, 
a  figure  of  consideration,  a  Doctor,  if  you  please, 
both  of  Philosophy  and  of  Law. 

The  Wilsons  rented  a  house  in  Library  Place. 
After  a  few  years  they  built  a  home  for  them 
selves  on  an  adjoining  lot,  an  attractive  half- 
timbered  house  designed  by  Mrs.  Wilson. 

The  new  professor  stepped  at  once  into  the 
front  rank,  as  indeed  became  a  Princeton  grad 
uate,  a  member  of  one  of  the  most  famous  classes 
the  old  college  had  graduated,  a  man  thoroughly 


THE  MANSE,  STAUNTON,  VIRGINIA,  WHERE  WOODROW  WILSON 
WAS  BORN 


THE  HOUSE  DESIGNED  BY  WOODROW  WILSON  AT  PRINCETON 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  105 

imbued  with  the  best  traditions  of  the  place. 
But  his  lectures  —  Princeton  had  no  tradition 
that  accounted  for  their  charm.  They  instantly 
became  popular;  the  attendance  mounted  until 
it  surpassed  that  ever  before  or  since  given  any 
course  of  study  at  Princeton;  before  long  very 
nearly  four  hundred  students,  almost  the  total 
number  of  juniors  and  seniors  combined,  were 
taking  Wilson's  courses  —  and  they  were  no 
"cinches"  either.,  Widely  informed,  marked 
by  almastery  of  fact  even  to  slight  detail,  inspir 
ing  in  their  range  and  sweep,  and  spiced  with  a 
pervading  sense  of  humor,  Professor  Wilson's 
lectures  were  further  marked  by  the  great  free 
dom  with  which  he  delivered  himself  of  his 
views  on  current  events.  It  was  his  custom  to 
put  students  on  their  honor  not  to  report  him; 
there  were  always  likely  to  be  in  attendance 
students  who  had  connections  with  city  news 
papers  who  might  frequently  have  made  good 
"stories"  out  of  the  professor's  lively  comments 
on  the  politics  of  the  day,  but  none  ever  took 
advantage  of  the  opportunity. 

The  classes  were  now  so  large  that  the  work 


106  WOODROW  WILSON 

of  a  professor  consisted  almost  entirely  of  lec 
turing.  As  we  shall  see  later,  it  was  not  then 
the  Princeton  idea  to  give  the  students  any  par 
ticular  oversight  or  inspiration  elsewhere  than 
in  the  classroom;  yet  the  Wilson  home  became, 
and  always  remained,  a  resort  hugely  popular 
with  the  young  men  who  were  so  lucky  as  to  be 
admitted  to  it  —  and  its  doors  were  hospitably 
hung.  Professor  Wilson,  in  short,  stepped  into 
the  position  of  first  favorite,  alike  with  his  col 
leagues  of  the  faculty  and  with  the  undergrads. 
They  have  at  Princeton  a  way  of  voting  at  the 
end  of  each  year  for  all  possible  sorts  of 
"popular  personages."  For  a  number  of  years 
Professor  Wilson  was  voted  the  most  popular 
professor.  He  was  able,  he  was  genial,  he  was 
active;  a  member  of  the  faculty  committee  on 
outdoor  sports,  and  of  the  faculty  committee  on 
discipline.  In  faculty  meetings  Mr.  Wilson 
soon  became  one  of  those  most  attentively 
listened  to.  Though  meetings  were  generally 
informal,  occasionally  there  was  a  debate  in 
which  his  quite  remarkable  powers  showed  at 
their  best. 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  107 

During  the  twelve  years,  1890  to  1902,  Mr.N 
Wilson  continued  to  fulfil  at  Princeton  the  du-\ 
ties  of  professor  of  jurisprudence  and  politics^ 
They  were  twelve  years  of  steady,  yet  pleasant 
labor;  years  of  growth  and  of  growing  influence,  \ 
both  in  the  university  and  in  the  country.  Four 
new  books  were  added  to  the  list  signed  by  this 
man  who  wrote  history  and  politics  with  so 
much  literary  charm :  "  Division  and  Reunion," 
"An  Old  Master,"  "Mere  Literature,"  and 
"George  Washington."  He  was  heard  now  in 
occasional  addresses  in  many  parts  of  the  land 
—  discussing  public  questions  before  commercial, 
industrial,  and  professional  bodies.  The  vigor 
of  his  views  on  questions  of  the  day,  as  well  as 
his  readiness,  grace,  and  power  on  the  platform, 
gave  him  place  among  the  recognized  leaders 
of  national  thought.  He  had  for  a  time  con 
tinued  going  down  to  Johns  Hopkins,  and  now 
he  gave  occasional  lectures  at  the  New  York 
Law  School. 

At  the  end  of  a  decade  in  his  chair  Mr.  Wilson 
had  attained,  naturally,  and  with  the  good  will 
of  all,  a  position  of  unchallenged  supremacy  in 


108  WOODROW  WILSON 

the  university  town  and  of  marked  distinction 
in  the  country. 

With  such  brief  summary  this  biography  must 
dismiss  a  period  the  external  facts  of  which  were 
of  little  dramatic  value  —  incommensurate  al 
together  with  their  importance  in  the  develop 
ment  and  strengthening  of  conviction  and  char 
acter  which  were  to  have  play  in  the  time  which 
we  now  approach. 

As  one  looks  into  those  twelve  years  and  (to 
the  eye  that  regards  merely  externals  their 
somewhat  prosaic  events,  what  chiefly  impresses 
him  in  the  man  is  the  growth  in  vividness  of 
his  social  sense,  his  love  of  humanity  —  express 
ing  itself  most  commonly  in  terms  of  patriotism. 
It  is  clear  too  that  he  is  winning  some  wise  in 
sight  into  the  mystery  of  the  unfolding  of  the 
minds  of  young  men ;  acquiring  much  skill  in  the 
craft  of  the  teacher  and  reaching  withal  some 
conclusions  respecting  principles  and  methods 
of  education.  But  beyond  and  above  all  other 
convictions  that  ripened  during  these  twelve 
years  in  the  enlivening  companionship  of  stu 
dents,  in  the  joyful  exercise  before  them  of  his 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  109 

gift  of  speech,  and  in  the  lonely  stillness  of  a 
heart  that  pondered  the  history  of  human  insti 
tutions  and  the  laws  of  progress,  there  grew  up 
in  Woqdrow  Wilson  a  fervent  devotion  to  democ 
racy.  £YOU  cannot  understand  the  man  from 
this  time  forth,  you  cannot  follow  the  battle  of 
the  next  few  years  through  the  intricate  alleys 
through  which  it  raged,  unless  you  are  always 
conscious  that  you  are  beholding  a  scene  in  which 
the  central  figure  is  that  of  a  prophet  inspired 
by  a  passionate  sense  of  the  majesty  of  the  law 
of  social  justice;  a  warrior  burning  with  abhor 
rence  of  secret  things,  of  things  that  divide  and 
isolate,  hot  with  hatred  of  the  artificial  distinc 
tion,  the  unearned  privilege,  the  unequal  oppor 
tunity;  a  knight  animated  by  a  loving  tenderness 
for  the  man  at  the  bottom,  a  tenderness  not 
sentimental,  but  born  in  reason  -  -  like  the 
reverent  regard  of  the  philosopher  for  the  lowly 
root  and  the  good  homely  soil  from  which  it 
pleases  God  to  nourish  the  flower  that  nods  in 
acknowledged  beauty  in  the  air  above.M 

All  this  you  wTould  discern  if  you  studied  the 
speeches  and  read  the  books  and  listened  to  his 


WOODROW  WILSON 

pupils  describe  the  spirit  of  the  lectures  of  the 
Princeton  professor.  But  you  will  see  it  all 
manifest  in  action  when  he  exchanges  his  pro 
fessional  for  an  executive  office. 

Princeton,  like  other  American  colleges,  had 
been  going  through  a  period  of  change.  The 
serious-minded  men  of  an  earlier  generation, 
intent  on  fitting  themselves  for  a  learned  profes 
sion,  and  therefore  eager  to  study  —  and  to 
study  the  old  tripod,  Greek,  Latin,  and  Mathe 
matics  —  had  been  swamped  by  an  influx  of 
fellows  of  a  new  sort  —  fellows  who  came  to 
college  to  stay  for  a  few  jolly  years  on  the  way 
to  business.  They  had  no  intention  of  doing 
more  than  the  authorities  required,  and  Prince 
ton  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  requiring  little, 
either  in  the  way  of  study  or  discipline.  Presi 
dent  Francis  Landey  Pat  ton,  the  brilliant 
scholar  who  would  have  been  in  his  glory  at  the 
head  of  a  college  of  an  earlier  day,  found  the  new 
tasks  irksome  and  impossible,  and  in  June,  1902, 
^  resigned  them. 

There  seems  to  have  been  no  discussion  as  to 


"PROFESSOR"  WILSON  111 

the  successorship.  It  appears  to  have  been  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  it  should 
fall  to  the  Princeton  man  who  had  made  a  great 
name  for  himself  in  the  world  of  books  and  of 
scholarship;  who  had  been  one  of  the  most 
active  members  of  the  faculty;  and  who,  above 
all,  by  his  oratorical  powers  could  best  represent 
the  college  in  the  great  world.  Wilson,  there 
fore,  was  chosen,  and  the  announcement  w 
made  on  Commencement  Day. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PRINCETON'S  NEW  PRESIDENT 

THE  presidency  of  Princeton  University 
is  a  position  of  dignity  and  considera 
tion.  The  long  line  of  men,  reaching 
back  one  hundred  and  sixty  years,  who  had  filled 
it,  were,  each  in  his  time,  among  the  most  dis 
tinguished  divines  and  scholars  of  the  land.  By 
a  sort  of  instinct,  or  chance  —  such  as  that  which 
had  at  the  beginning  named  the  college  hall 
Nassau  rather  than  Belcher  —  Princeton  had 
gravitated  toward  the  aristocratic.  Latterly, 
the  university  had  come  to  be  known  as  "the 
most  charming  country  club  in  America."  Its 
retiring  head  had  avowed  it  impossible  that  it 
should  be  other  than  a  college  for  rich  men's 
.sons. 

Whatever  may  have  been  expected  of  him,  it 
was  impossible  for  the  new  president  (who  by 

the  way  was  the  first  layman  to  occupy  the 

112 


PRINCETON'S  NEW  PRESIDENT      113 

chair)  to  fall  into  the  easeful  tradition  of  the 
office.     It  was  impossible  for  him  merely  to 
institute  a  few  necessary  reforms  and  let  things 
go  on  much  as  before.     He  had  scarcely  been 
inaugurated    when    everybody    became    aware 
that,  for  good  or  ill,  the  Judgment  Day  had 
dawned  over  the  quiet  campus  and  the  ivied 
halls.      There  was  to  be  no  lack  of  initiative,  no 
tearfulness  and  trembling  before  novel  proposals, 
no  shirking  of  responsibility,  no  failure  of  nerve. 
There  was  no  undue  precipitancy.     President 
Wilson  spent  a  year  studying  conditions  —  he 
already   knew    them    pretty   well  —  from    his 
new  vantage-point.     He  did  not,  however,  feel  / 
any  necessity  of  awaiting  the  lapse  of  a  year/ 
before  undertaking  to  bring  the  scholarship  and 
the  discipline  of  the  school  up  to  what  it  already 
was  on  paper.     He  assigned  this  work  to  a  com 
mittee  on  examination  and  standing,  at  the  head 
of  which  he  appointed  Professor,  now  Dean,~~l 
Harry  Fine.     Students  who  failed  to  pass  their 
examinations  were  dropped,  rich  or  poor,  with     \ 
or  without  social  "pull."     Work  was  absolutely x 
demanded. 


114  WOODROW  WILSON 

There  was,  of  course,  an  immense  sensation 
when  the  Princeton  students  found  that,  from 
(       that  day  forth,  they  must  go  to  work.     Work 
)      had  not  been  a  Princeton  tradition.     The  rever 
berations  of  indignation  rolled  through  the  skies 
for  several  years,  until  there  came  in  a  new  body 
of  students,  prepared  and  willing  to  live  up  to 
the  new  standards. 

During  that  first  year  also  a  committee  on 
revision  of  the  course  of  study  was  appointed  to 
report  the  following  year. 

If  Princeton  was  to  be  a  place  of  work,  it  was 
to  be  fruitful  work,  work  worth  doing,  worth 
taking  four  years  out  of  a  young  man's  life  to  do. 
It  was  to  be,  above  all,  as  President  Wilson  saw 
it  and  continually  phrased  it,  work  that  would 
fit  a  young  man  to  serve  his  country  better  — 
by  which  I  suppose  he  meant  serve  it  by  living  as 
a  citizen,  an  employer,  a  man  of  business,  that 
larger  and  fuller  life  which  true  education  im-^ 
parts. 

He  even  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  wanted 
the  university  to  make  its  graduates  henceforth 


PRINCETON'S  NEW  PRESIDENT     115 

as  unlike  their  fathers  as  possible  —  by  which, 
of  course,  he  meant  that  fathers,  being  settled 
in  their  opinions  and  in  reverence  for  what  is 
established,  have  a  part  to  play  different  from 
that  of  sons,  who  particularly  must  sympathize 
with  the  re-creative  and  re-formative  processes  of 
life  and  society.  That  saying  blanched  the 
cheek  of  many  an  elderly  Princetonian;  it  was 
spoken  in  an  understanding  of  the  necessity 
of  opening  college  doors  to  the  new  facts  which 
modern  science  has  added  to  the  store  of  human 
knowledge;  spoken,  also,  in  appreciation  of  the 
new  social  conscience  that  has  been  born  in  the 
world,  though  it  is  so  slow  in  coming  to  the  birth 
in  colleges. 

First,  of  course,  a  university  that  would  serve 
the  nation  must  take  into  its  course  of  study  — 
its  system  of  intellectual  training  —  the  mass  of 
new  knowledge  of  which  the  old  curriculum  was 
ignorant;  the  college  course  of  the  fathers  of  the 
present  generation  had  become  an  anachronism. 

If  it  had  fallen  to  President  Eliot  of  Harvard 
to  proclaim  the  new  age  in  which  the  old  edu 
cational  ideas  had  ceased  to  suffice,  Princeton, 


116  WOODROW  WILSON 

under  the  presidency  of  Wilson,  now  took  up  the 
completing  work  of  positively  constructing  a 
system  which  should  contain  the  new  ideas,  the 
new  subjects;  and  not  only  contain  them,  but 
organize  them,  coordinate  them,  put  them  into 
proper  sequence  and  relation. 

We  are  here  in  a  region  of  big  things  in  the 
educational  world,  yet  (so  little  do  most  of  us 
concern  ourselves  with  questions  of  education, 
which  do  so  profoundly  concern  the  future)  it 
would  doubtless  be  unwise  to  dwell  on  them. 

President  Wilson's  committee,  after  months 
of  labor,  the  freed  and  enthusiastic  labor  of  eager 
men,  promulgated  a  revised  --or  rather  new  - 
*  system  of  collegiate  study.  It  was  the  first 
positive  attempt  made  to  bring  the  new  college 
[•  education  into  intelligent  and  systematic  re 
lationships  as  a  body  of  discipline.  All  interested 
in  education  know  of  the  revolution  wrought  by 
the  "department  system"  that  has  ever  since 
prevailed  at  Princeton;  while  it  offered  the 
widest  scope  for  the  "election"  of  studies,  it 
practically  assured  that  the  studies  "elected''* 
should  lead  to  one  settled  purpose  —  that  is, 


PRINCETON'S  NEW  PRESIDENT      117 

it  intelligently  coordinated  a  student's  work;  it 
turned  him  out  of  college  not  with  a  smattering  of 
a  thousand  subjects,  but  with  a  pretty  thorough 
training  in  some  one  broad  group  of  subjects. 
President  Wilson  is  entitled  to  the  credit  of 
presiding  over  this  revision.  He  did  not  him 
self  work  it  out  in  detail.  Possibly  he  contrib 
uted  at  the  outset  little  more  than  the  "group  - 
system"  idea  already  used  at  Bryn  Mawr.  But 
from  this  germinal  idea  the  plan  grew  into  a 
great  architectural  scheme.  The  educational 
edifice  now  erected  was  a  fabric  of  fine  articula 
tion,  of  nice  adjustment.  It  was  a  first  evidence^ 
and  result  of  that  principle  of  Wilson's  mind 
which  demands  coordination  and  right  relation 
ship  —  and  it  was  the  first  step  toward  the 
transformation  of  Princeton  into  a  university 
for  the  people. 


resident  Wilson's  next  step  was  to  commit 
rinceton  to  the  revolution  that  has  come  about 
with  the  adoption  of  the  preceptorial  system.     It 
was  his  idea  that  the  university  had  grown  too 
large  longer  to  train  its  students  merely  through 


118  WOODROW  WILSON 

lectures  and  examinations.  There  was  no  pro 
vision  for  the  students  outside  of  the  classrooms. 
What  they  did  elsewhere,  where  they  lived,  what 
they  talked  about,  with  whom  they  associated, 
what  books  they  read,  what  ideals  of  life  were 
held  up  before  them  —  with  all  these,  the  uni 
versity  in  the  days  before  had  had  nothing  to  do. 
Fifteen  hours  a  week  in  lecture-rooms  rep 
resented  the  only  opportunity  possessed  by  the 
faculty  to  "educate"  the  men.  *A11  this,  said 
the  president,  must  be  changed.  These  young 
men  must  not  be  turned  out  into  the  street  to 
go  and  come  without  direction,  without  proper 
companionship,  without  inspiration,  during  the 
other  one  hundred  and  fifty  hours  of  the  week. 
His  idea  was  to  put  the  students  more  intimately  - 
into  association  with  a  body  of  young  instructors 
who  were  to  afford  the  undergrads  friendly 
companionship  and  oversight.  Formal  recita 
tions  were  largely  abolished.  Men  studied  sub 
jects;  they  did  not  merely  "take  courses." 

r    Constant   informal,   personal   contact   between    . 

/      students  and  faculty  was  the  keynote  of  the 

V^  new  plan. 


PRINCETON'S  NEW  PRESIDENT      119 

To  this  idea  also  there  was  little  objection, 
though  some  of  the  trustees  and  perhaps  a  few 
of  the  faculty  began  to  get  a  little  uneasy  at  so 
far  leaving  the  old  ruts.  Long  after  the  pre 
ceptorial  system  had  been  put  in  operation  it 
was  brought  up  against  President  Wilson  that 
he  had  inaugurated  it  on  his  own  dictum  with 
out  having  consulted  the  faculty. 

The  cost  of  the  preceptorial  system  was  very 
great,  approximately  $100,000  a  year.  It  was 
determined  to  raise  at  least  a  part  of  this  by  sub 
scriptions  from  the  alumni.  Possibly  this  deter 
mination  was  a  practical  error;  for  it  gave  the 
alumni  an  influence  and  voice  in  the  manage 
ment  of  the  university,  especially  it  gave  them 
a  degree  of  control  over  the  teaching  system 
which  has  not  thus  far  been  particularly  happy 
in  its  results.  The  new  does  not  always  flourish 
best  under  the  too  close  shade  of  the  old.  The 
original  idea  was  that  graduate  classes  should  en 
dow,  each  of  them,  two  or  three  preceptorships. 
This  was  so  modified  that  classes  were  allowed 
to  contribute  annually  the  salaries  of  preceptors 
in  lieu  of  the  capital  for  a  foundation. 


120  WOODROW  WILSON 

The  preceptorial  system  was  established,  and 
became  a  distinctive  feature  of  Princeton  life. 
In  connection  with  the  new  curriculum,  it 
worked  —  call  it  a  miracle,  and  you  use  none 
too  strong  a  word.  It  created  a  new  Princeton, 
a  place  no  longer  of  set  tasks,  recitations  and 
examinations  unhappily  breaking  into  the  pleas 
ant  days  of  good-fellowship  and  sport;  but  a 
place  where,  to  a  considerable  degree  at  least, 
good-fellowship  was  seen  to  be  compatible  with 
study,  and  study  to  be  not  necessarily  a  grind. 
The  minds  of  hundreds  of  students  were  eman 
cipated  and  stimulated;  the  place  pulsated  with 
a  new  sort  of  spontaneity  and  zest. 

Princeton  University,  which,  when  the  last 
president  resigned,  was  in  such  a  case  that, 
according  to  a  trustee  of  the  day,  its  career 
"threatened  to  end  in  its  virtual  extinction"  as 
an  important  educational  influence  in  America, 
was  attracting  the  surprised  attention  of  the 
country.  It  had  a  constructive  programme.  It 
had  a  leader,  and  a  harmonious  faculty,  and  it 
had  at  least  an  acquiescent  board  of  trustees. 

Alas !  that  the  further  steps  in  that  programme, 


PRINCETON'S  NEW  PRESIDENT      121 

the  further  ends  to  which  the  leader's  clear  vision 
and  firm  purpose  looked,  meant  —  democracy. 
Alas!  that  the  educational  revolution  could  not 
have  proceeded  without  laying  its  irreverent 
hand  on  what  the  spirit  of  old  Princeton  recog 
nized  as  the  sacred  ark  of  social  privilege !  Alas ! 
that  it  showed  so  much  more  concern  for  man 
hood  than  for  —  money ! 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DEMOCRACY    OR    ARISTOCRACY? 

DOCTOR  WILSON  had  served  five 
years  as  president  of  Princeton  Uni 
versity  before  he  reached  the  point  of 
irrepressible  conflict.  So  long  as  he  confined 
V_himself  to  the"  strictly  educational  workings 
of  the  school  he  had  been  allowed  to  have  his 
way  without  much  opposition.  But  now,  when 
his  constructive  mind  reached  over  to  the 
student's  social  life  and  undertook  to  organize 
that  and  bring  it  into  proper  relationship  with 
the  other  elements  of  university  life,  he  found 
that  he  had  put  his  hand  upon  what  the  guard 
ians  of  the  aristocratic  institution  were  really 
interested  in  and  what  they  were  not  disposed  to 
see  changed.  Having  revised  the  system  of 
study,  and  having  refashioned  the  teaching 
plan,  he  had  now  reached  the  point  where  he 

believed  it  necessary  to  reconstruct  the  extra- 

122 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?     123 

collegiate  relations  —  that  is,  the  ordinary  living 
arrangements  of  the  place  --  taking  them  in  as 
a  necessary  part  of  the  total  university  plan. 
He  felt  the  necessity  of  assuming  charge  of  the 
housing  and  boarding  of  the  students,  and  of 
doing  this  in  a  way  most  advantageous  to  the 
young  men. 

In  brief,  his  idea  was  the  organization  of  the 
university  in  a  number  of  "colleges"  or  "quad 
rangles"  —  practically  dormitories  --  each  of 
which  should  harbor  a  certain  number  of  men 
from  every  class,  with  a  few  of  the  younger  p 
fessors.  It  was  not  a  new  idea  with  President 
Wilson;  people  remembered  that  he  had  talked 
of  it  at  least  ten  years  before  he  became  presi 
dent.  It  was  precisely  in  line  with  the  pre 
ceptorial  plan;  indeed,  it  was  the  necessary 
culmination  of  that  plan.  President  Wilson  had 
no  notion  of  dividing  Princeton  University  into 
colleges  at  all  like  those  which  constitute 
Oxford  University  or  Cambridge,  for  example. 
The  university  was  still  to  carry  on  all  instruc 
tion  and  maintain  its  authority  everywhere. 
The  "quads"  were  to  be  merely  residence  halls,  / 


WOODROW  WILSON 

each  of  which  with  its  dining-room  and  common- 
room  was  to  be  a  little  world  in  itself  —  such  a 
world  as  the  university  by  reason  of  its  size 
could  no  longer  be. 

President  Wilson  secured  the  appointment  of 
a  committee  consisting  of  seven  of  the  trustees 
to  investigate  the  merits  of  the  "quad"  proposal, 
and  at  the  June,  1907,  meeting  the  committee 
reported  on  "the  social  coordination  of  the 
university,"  endorsing  Mr.  Wilson's  plan.  The 
report  of  this  committee  was  accepted,  and  its 
recommendation  adopted,  with  only  one  dissent 
ing  vote,  twenty-five  of  the  twenty-seven  trus 
tees  being  present,  at  the  June  meeting. 

Now,  it  is  probable  that  President  Wilson  did 
not  hit  upon  his  "quad"  plan  primarily  as  a 
means  of  reforming  the  social  life  of  Princeton. 
He  reached  it  rather  as  a  student  of  education. 
It  was  very  clear  to  him  that  fifteen  hours  a 
week  out  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  is  not 
enough  in  which  to  "educate"  a  young  man. 
It  was  further  evident  to  him  that  the  associa 
tion  of  new  students  with  older  students  and  pro 
fessors  was  exceedingly  to  be  desired;  he  knew 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?     125 

that  a  freshman  learned  far  more  from  the  class 
men  above  him  and  from  association  with  his 
instructors  between   lectures   than  he  learned  j 
from  the  lectures  themselves;  he  became  con-^ 
vinced  of  the  advisability  of  cutting  across  the 
lines  of  class  isolation ;  his  proposal  was  to  divide 
the  university  perpendicularly  rather  than  hori 
zontally. 

What  was  amiss  with  the  "quad"  proposal? 

This  —  that  it  cut  into  the  aristocratic  social 
structure  which  the  dominating  element  in 
Princeton  had  erected  for  itself. 

If,  visiting  Princeton,  you  will  proceed  to 
the  top  of  a  street  known  as  Prospect  Avenue, 
and  pass  down  it,  you  will  see  something  which 
probably  is  not  paralleled  at  any  seat  of  learning 
in  the  world.  Prospect  Avenue  is  lined  with 
club-houses,  twelve  of  them,  with  handsome 
buildings,  beautiful  lawns,  and  tennis  courts,  and, 
in  the  case  of  the  more  favored  clubs  on  the  so 
side  of  the  street,  a  delightful  view  across  the 
valley  to  the  eastward.  Some  of  the  club-houses 
are  sumptuous,  comparing  very  favorably  with 


126  WOODROW  WILSON 

C    the  best  city  clubs.     Their  aggregate  value  must 

be   much    more   than    $1,000,000.     The    clubs 

house,  on  an  average,  thirty  members  each  — 

I      fifteen  juniors  and  fifteen  seniors,  about  350  in 

/      all,    juniors    and   seniors    alone   being   eligible. 

Three  hundred  other  members  of  those  classes 

can  get  into  no  club.    Freshmen  and  sophomores 

can  only  look  forward  to  admission  to  them. 

Princeton  has  long  forbidden  the  formation 
of  fraternity  chapters;  students  are  required  on 
matriculation  to  take  oath  that  they  will  join 
no  fraternities.  The  clubs  are  the  comparatively 
recent  outgrowth  of  eating  associations.  The 
university  has  never  provided  any  eating-places 
for  the  students.  Some  thirty  years  ago  the 
members  of  an  eating-club  which  called  itself 
the  "Ivy"  conceived  the  idea  of  perpetuating 
itself.  From  this  idea  has  grown  up  this 
dominating  feature  of  Princeton  life,  estranged 
from  the  university  and  yet  having  more  to  do 
with  the  real  forming  of  its  students  than  any 
other  feature  of  the  college  life. 

No  one  can  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  this 
club  system  without  understanding  its  essen- 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?     127 

tially  vicious  character.  Perhaps  only  those 
who  have  lived  at  Princeton  thoroughly  under 
stand  how  extremely  vicious  the  system  is.  At 
the  outset  it  ought  to  be  made  clear  that  no 
reflection  of  any  sort  or  kind  is  or  can  be  cast 
upon  the  morality  of  the  clubs.  They  are  well 
managed;  they  are  delightful  homes;  they  as 
semble  groups  of  undoubtedly  fine  and  gentle 
manly  men.  No  drinking  is  allowed,  and  in  no 
particular  has  there  ever  been  the  slightest 
scandal  about  their  conduct. 

The  trouble  is  that  they  necessarily  constitute— 
an  aristocracy,  in  the  midst  of  a  community 
which  should,  above  all  things,  be  absolutely  J 
democratic.  It  may  be  all  very  well  for  the  three 
hundred  youths  who  enjoy  the  delights  of  the 
"Ivy,"  the  "Cap  and  Gown,"  the  "Colonial," 
"Tiger  Inn,"  and  the  rest  (though  such  luxury 
is  of  questionable  value  to  a  boy  who  has  yet 
to  make  his  way  in  the  world),  but  what  of  the 
three  hundred  young  men  who  have  not  been 
able  to  "make"  one  of  them?  They  feel  them 
selves  ostracized  and  humiliated,  and  the  seeds 
of  social  bitterness  are  sown  in  their  souls. 


128  WOODROW  WILSON 

There  is  no  provision  for  them  outside  of  com 
mon  boarding-houses.  Not  a  few  leave  the 
university. 

Worse  yet,  rivalry  for  admission  to  the  clubs 
is  so  great  that  it  injures  the  work  of  the  fresh 
men  and  sophomores.  The  first  term  of  the 
sophomore  year,  especially,  is  considered  to  be 
entirely  wrecked  by  the  absorption  of  the  stu 
dents  in  candidating  for  the  club  elections  held 
that  spring.  True,  from  time  to  time  the  clubs 
enter  into  treaties  pledging  themselves  to  ab 
stain  from  soliciting  desirable  sophomores  — 
and  the  result  of  that,  when  the  treaties  are 
lived  up  to,  is  to  make  impossible  any  friendship, 
no  matter  how  natural  or  desirable,  between  a 
sophomore  and  an  upper  classman;  and  when 
they  are  not  lived  up  to,  to  supplant  free  natural 
intimacies  with  secret  politics.  So  highly  is 
membership  in  a  swagger  club  regarded,  that 
parents  of  prospective  students  have  been 
known  to  begin  visits  to  Princeton  a  year  or 
two  before  their  son  entered  college,  with  the 
purpose  of  organizing  a  social  campaign  to  land 
him  in  the  club  to  which  he  aspired. 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?    129 

It  may  easily  be  seen  how  the  existence  of 
these  select  coteries  minister  to  snobbery;  how 
they  foster  toadying;  how  they  introduce  a 
worldly,  material,  and  unnatural  element  into 
what  is  naturally  one  of  the  finest  things  in  the 
world  —  a  democracy  of  boys;  how  they  set  up 
at  the  outset  of  a  student's  career  a  mistaken 
ideal,  an  unworthy  aim;  and  how  they  divide 
students  along  unnatural  lines.  Over  and  over 
again,  Princeton  sees  a  group  of  congenial  fel 
lows  of  the  incoming  freshman  class  gravitate 
toward  each  other  in  the  first  few  weeks  of  the 
term,  and  then,  in  obedience  to  some  sudden, 
mysterious  influence  from  Prospect  Avenue, 
dissolve.  The  members  of  this  group  soon, 
perhaps,  find  themselves  in  friendly  associations 
in  some  other  direction,  but  again  these  asso 
ciations  also  are  broken  up.  The  spirit  of  the 
place  does  not  allow  men  to  form  friendly  and 
natural  associations  in  accordance  with  their 
tastes  and  dispositions;  they  must  always  strive 
to  become  friends  of  those  particular  classmates 
who  have  the  best  chance  of  "making"  the  best 
clubs,  and  as  "the  hunch"  passes  "down  the 


130  WOODROW  WILSON 

line"  from  Prospect  Avenue,  the  prospects  of 
one  and  another  student  wax  and  wane,  and  the 
character  of  the  coteries  in  which  he  finds  him 
self  goes  up  and  down.  The  social  life  of  the 
two  lower  classes  presents  such  a  picture  as 
would  a  layer  of  iron  filings  over  which  a  magnet 
is  passed,  forming  groups  now  here,  now  there, 
and  keeping  all  in  constant  confusion.  So 
Princeton's  clubs  continually  agitate  the  under 
graduate  life,  prevent  the  forming  of  natural 
friendships,  beget  snobbery,  set  up  an  aristoc 
racy,  condemn  half  the  student  body  to  an 
inferior  social  position,  and  make  the  chief  prize 
of  the  student's  career,  not  the  attainment  of  an 
education,  but  membership  in  a  favored  group. 
In  the  words  of  President  Wilson,  the  side-show 
had  swallowed  up  the  circus.  Nothing  could  be 
more  un-American;  nothing  could  be  more  op 
posed  to  the  true  principles  of  education. 
_/ 

We  approach  now  one  of  the  most  dramatic, 
as  it  is  one  of  the  most  involved,  chapters  in  the 
life  of  any  American  institution  of  learning  - 
indeed  a  chapter,  if  it  could  be  rightly  told,  not 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?     131 

often  excelled  in  interest  in  any  story  of  Ameri 
can  life.  To  appreciate  the  emotions  which 
were  stirred,  the  passions  which  were  aroused, 
the  bitterness  engendered,  the  life-long  estrange 
ments  created,  by  what  outsiders  may  easily 
regard  as  a  slight  academical  question,  it  is 
necessary  to  consider  that  a  university  town 
constitutes  a  peculiarly  isolated  microcosm  in 
itself.  Its  own  affairs  loom  very  large  to  the 
members  of  a  university,  and,  indeed,  very  large 
in  their  expansive  influence  they  are.  In  such  a 
place  as  Princeton  are  gathered  men  of  ability 
and  force  of  character  much  above  the  average; 
men  likely  to  be  of  strong  convictions,  which 
they  are  well  able  to  express.  Ambitions  have 
their  play,  too,  in  the  college  world;  jealousies 
are  easily  aroused,  as  well  as  extraordinarily 
devoted  friendships  cemented. 

In  Princeton,  too,  there  had  grown  up  a 
certain  duality  of  thought  and  ruling  ideal.  The 
town  had  become  the  chosen  residence  of  a 
number  of  families  of  wealth,  some  of  them  of 
very  great  wealth.  Having  been  for  a  number 
of  years  a  school  very  easy-going  as  to  scholar- 


132  WOODROW  WILSON 

<      ship  and  discipline,  it  had  become  a  favored 
[^  resort  of  rich  men's  sons.     Over  against  the 
wealthy  residents  (none  of  whom,  it  should  be 
said,  were  vulgar  of  display;  most  of  whom,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  cultured  Christian  people 
of    high   instincts,    the   unconscious   habits   of 
whose  minds  only  it  was  that  separated  them 
instinctively    from    sympathy    with    the    less 
wealthy);  over  against  the  students  with  auto 
mobiles  who  ran  over  to  Philadelphia  or  New 
York  at  week-ends  or  entertained  small  parties 
at  the  Inn  -  -  there  was  a  body  of  somewhat 
slenderly  paid  professors  and  of  students  who 
had  been  enabled  to  take  a  college  course  only 
through   the   sacrifices   of  their  parents.     The 
^Princeton  world  was  a  fair  epitome  of  modern 
I  America;  there  was  little  vice  in  it;  there  was 
I  little  conscious  estranging  pride;  there  was  no 
1  acknowledged  dislike  of  the  rich  on  the  part  of 
tne  less  fortunate;  but  there  was  the  growing 
prominence  of  wealth  and  an  increasing  exhibi 
tion  of  its  necessary  power,  and  the  gradual 
assertion  of  that  power  in  forgetfulness  of  the 
needs  of  the  poor.     In  short,  there  was  at  Prince- 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?     133 

ton  all  the  elements  that  go  to  make  up  the 
drama  of  life,  and  these  so  assembled  in  a  small 
community  that  their  action  and  reaction  could 
be  easily  watched.  A  novelist  might  have 
found  at  Princeton  in  the  years  1907-11  material 
for  the  American  novel. 

A  circular  setting  forth  in  outline  President 
Wilson's  "quad"  proposal  was  sent  to  the 
various  clubs  and  was  generally  read  there  on 
the  Friday  night  before  Commencement,  1907. 
Princeton  alumni,  particularly  those  from  the 
Eastern  cities,  come  back  in  large  numbers  to 
their  alma  mater  and  usually  "put  up"  at  the 
club-houses,  where  the  Friday  night  preceding 
Commencement  is  given  over  to  a  jolly  dinner. 
The  "quad"  proposal,  it  was  instantly  seen,- 
contemplated  the  doing  away  of  the  clubs;  it  was 
even  said  that  Wilson  proposed  to  confiscate 
them.  The  wrath  of  the  alumni  jollifying  that 
night  in  Prospect  Avenue  was  instantly  aroused^/ 
and  the  shout  of  battle  was  raised.  No  decent 
consideration  was  ever  given  the  new  idea. 
The  grieved  graduates  went  home  to  spread 
stories  of  the  attack  on  Princeton's  favorite 


134  WOODROW  WILSON 

institutions  and  rally  the  old  boys  to  their 
defence.  Old  Princetonians  wrote  distressed 
letters  to  the  Alumni  Weekly  expressing  their 
grief  and  astonishment  that  a  Princeton  presi 
dent  should  so  far  forget  himself  as  to  try  to 
"make  a  gentleman  chum  with  a  mucker";  they 
wanted  to  know  what  the  world  was  coming  to 
when  a  man  was  to  be  "compelled  to  submit 
to  dictation  as  to  his  table  companions";  in  the 
holy  name  of  liberty  and  the  good  old  Princeton 
spirit  they  swore  to  preserve  for  the  student 
"the  right  to  decide  for  himself  whom  he  will 
associate  with." 

The  trustees,  who  had  voted  the  plan  through 
with  but  a  single  dissenting  voice,  now  frightened 
by  the  alumni  howl,  were  persuaded  to  recon 
sider.  On  October  17th  the  Board  requested 
President  Wilson  to  withdraw  the  proposal. 

The  inalienable  right  of  the  American  college 
youth  to  choose  his  own  hat-band  (and  compel 
other  youths  to  wear  untrimmed  head-gear) 
was  thus  triumphantly  vindicated.  But  the 
saviors  of  the  club  system  were  not  generous  in 
victory.  They  continued  to  hurl  insults  upon 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?     135 

President  Wilson.  It  wasnow  discovered  thaj 
he  was  a  domineerir^J^riil^l^Jbjgoted^  incon 
siderate,  and  untruthful  demagogue.  The  pre 
ceptorial  system,  which  had  been7Tn~ operation 
for  two  jrears7  with"  everybody's  approval, 
was  now  also  attacked.__President  Wilson  was 
chargecT~with  having  inaugurated  it  over  the 
heads  of  the  faculty;  various  classes  among  the 
alumni  withdrew  their  subscriptions  for  the 
support  of  preceptors.  It  took  only  a  few 
months  of  this  sort  of  thing  for  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  the  faculty,  and  the  alumni  to  find 
themselves  divided  beyond  compromise.  Life 
long  friendships  were  broken.  Life-long  as 
sociates  parted  in  bitterness.  Charges  and 
countercharges  were  exchanged.  The  chasm 
deepened,  and  passions  so  violent  that  it  would 
not  have  been  deemed  possible  for  a  collegiate 
to  possess  them,  were  aroused. 

It  is  a  little  difficult  to  see  why  the  question 
should  have  provoked  the  astonishingly  bitter 
fight  which  now  broke  out  at  Princeton.  To 
find  the  real  cause  of  it  all  one  must  go  deeper 
than  the  issue  presented  on  the  surface,  much 


136  WOODROW  WILSON 

deeper  than  the  mere  personality  of  the  presi 
dent.  As  to  the  latter,  it  is  quite  possible  that 
\  Doctor  Wilson's  positive  character,  the  certainty 
of  his  convictions  and  his  aggressiveness  in  ex 
pressing  them,  may  have  been  distasteful  to  men 
long  accustomed  to  other  methods.  It  is  even 
possible  that  the  president  was  not  as  gentle  in 
his  manner,  perhaps  not  always  as  tactful,  as 
he  might  have  been,  as  he  has  since  become. 
Undoubtedly  a  man  of  exceeding  charm  of  per 
sonality,  he  had  his  grim  side  —  no  man  de 
scended  from  a  line  of  Scottish  Presbyterians  has 
not  —  and,  once  aroused  in  a  fight,  he  was  a  ruth- 
"'  less  opponent.  It  seems  to  be  the  case  that  the 
president's  reform  programme  grew  primarily 
out  of  his  convictions  as  a  teacher  of  young  men. 
He  did  not,  for  instance,  deliberately  set  about 
to  attack  the  Princeton  clubs;  he  only  found 
that  they  were  in  the  way  of  a  better  educational 
plan,  the  adoption  of  which  he  deemed  neces 
sary.  But  when  the  host  gathered  for  the  de 
fence  of  an  aristocratic  institution  because  it 
was  aristocratic,  when  they  denounced  him  as  a 
confiscator,  a  leveler,  and  a  Socialist,  the  innate 


DEMOCRACY  OR  ARISTOCRACY?     137 

democracy  of  the  man  flamed  up,  and  the  fighfly 
ceased  to  be  a  debate  over  educational  ideals,] 
having  become  an  irreconcilable  conflict  between/ 
democracy  and  privileged  wealth.  / 

President  Wilson  continued  to  expound  his 
ideas  on  the  subject  of  the  social  organization 
of  the  university  when  invited  to  do  so  at  gather 
ings  of  the  alumni  in  various  cities,  but  he 
made  no  aggressive  campaign.  The  preceptorial 
system,  in  spite  of  the  growing  prejudice  against 
it,  continued  in  vogue,  the  necessary  funds  being 
voted  by  the  trustees. 

Before  we  turn  from  the  events  of  '07,  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  note  that,  though  his  plan  was 
for  the  present  defeated,  Mr.  Wilson  was  still 
meditating  on  the  necessity  of  making  Prince 
ton  democratic.  In  October,  a  graduate,  Mr. 
E.  B.  Seymour,  called  on  President  Wilson  and 
had  an  interesting  talk.  Though  he  disagreed 
with  the  president's  conclusions,  Mr.  Seymour 
thus  reports  Mr.  Wilson  s  views: 

He  felt  that  in  this  country  at  the  present  time  there 
was  too  strong  a  tendency  to  glorify  money  merely.  That 
with  the  increasing  wealth  of  the  country  this  tendency 


138  WOODROW  WILSON 

would  be  accentuated.  In  short,  he  feared  that  we  would 
rapidly  drift  into  a  plutocracy.  To  meet  this  condition 
he  felt  that  the  corrective  of  an  education  along  purely 
democratic  lines  should  be  given  to  our  boys  in  our  insti 
tutions  of  higher  learning.  At  Princeton,  whither  come 
many  sons  of  millionaires,  he  felt  we  should  so  impress 
these  boys  with  ideas  of  democracy  and  personal  worth 
that  when  they  became,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature, 
masters  of  their  father's  fortunes,  they  should  so  use  their 
undoubted  power  as  to  help,  not  hurt,  the  commonwealth. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST 

THE  story  now  becomes  complicated 
through  the  injection  of  another  issue, 
that,  namely,  of  the  graduate  college. 
Some  time  before  the  election  of  Professor 
Wilson  to  the  presidency,  Prof.  Andrew  F.  West, 
a  brilliant  and  persuasive  member  of  the  fac 
ulty,  with  ambitions,  had  been  given  the  title  of 
Dean  of  the  Graduate  School,  together  with  an 
appropriation  of  $2,500  to  be  used  in  studying 
graduate  systems  of  instruction  in  various  univer 
sities.  Dean  West  went  to  Europe  for  a  year,^ 
returned,  and  published  a  sumptuous  little 
volume  containing  an  elaborate  and  highly  illus 
trated  scheme  for  a  graduate  college.  It  was 
never  seen  by  the  faculty,  although  President. 
Wilson,  in  off-hand  good-will  for  the  general  idea 
of  graduate  development,  contributed  a  pref 
ace;  the  book  was  sent  by  Dean  West  to  likely 

139 


140  WOODROW  WILSON 

contributors  among  the  alumni.  In  1906  Doc 
tor  West  was  invited  to  the  presidency  of  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.  A 
meeting  of  a  trustees'  committee  adopted  a 
resolution  expressing  the  hope  that  he  remain, 
as  the  Board  had  counted  upon  him  to  put  into 
operation  the  graduate  school.  Dean  West  de 
clined  the  call  to  Boston. 

i  In  December  of  that  year,  Mrs.  J.  A.  Thomp 
son  Swann,  dying,  left  $250,000  for  the  beginning 

l— of  a  graduate  college;  among  the  conditions  of 
the  gift  was  the  provision  that  the  new  college 
should  be  located  upon  grounds  of  the  university. 
The  trustees  decided  to  build  it  on  the  site  of 
the  president's  house,  "Prospect,"  and  the 
university's  consulting  architect,  Mr.  Cram, 
was  instructed  to  draw  the  plans. 

In  the  spring  of  1909,  through  the  influence 
of  Dean  West,  Mr.  William  C.  Proctor  of  Cin 
cinnati  offered  $500,000  for  the  graduate  college 
condition  that  another  half  million  dollars 
be  raised.  Mr.  Proctor's  letter  seemed  to 
imply  that  the  money  must  be  used  in  carrying 
out  the  scheme  formulated  by  Dean  West;  it 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST     141 

also  condemned  the  site  chosen  for  the  graduate 
college  by  the  trustees.  In  his  second  letter, 
addressed  to  President  Wilson,  Mr.  Proctor 
named  two  locations  which  alone  would  be 
acceptable  to  him. 

So  long  as  Dean  West's  scheme  for  a  graduate 
school  was  a  paper  plan  only,  it  had  received  no 
special  examination.  But  when  these  two  be 
quests  made  its  realization  possible,  the  plan  was 
given  scrutiny.  It  was  apparent  to  many  of  the 
trustees  and  faculty  that  Dean  West's  elaborate 
plan  was  not  one  to  which  they  were  prepared 
to  commit  themselves  definitely.  A  special 
committee  of  five,  appointed  by  the  president  of 
the  Board  of  Trustees,  reported  (February  10, 
1910)  against  the  unconditional  acceptance  of 
Mr.  Proctor's  gift.  They  felt  that  graduate 
work  at  Princeton  was  still  in  its  formative 
period;  conditions  surrounding  it  were  as  yet 
experimental,  and  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  let 
the  organization,  development,  and  conduct  of  a 
graduate  college  pass  in  any  measure  outside 
the  control  of  the  university  faculty  and  Board. 
The  sites  which  Mr.  Proctor  insisted  upon  were 


142  WOODROW  WILSON 

remote  from  the  university  centre,  and  the  com 
mittee  felt  that  this  was  a  vital  mistake.  It 
was  an  extremely  delicate  matter  to  look  the 
gift-horse  in  the  mouth,  but  so  plain  was  their 
duty  that  they,  therefore,  called  Mr.  Proctor's 
attention  to  the  fact  that  Dean  West's  plan  was 
merely  a  tentative  one  which  had  never  been 
adopted  in  its  entirety  and  that  the  matter  of 
the  location  of  the  graduate  college  seemed  to 
them  to  be  so  important  that  it  could  not  be 
decided  off-hand  by  a  donor,  however  generous; 
\  in  short,  they  desired  to  know  whether  the  pros 
pective  gift  was  to  place  in  the  hands  of  the 
authorized  guardians  of  the  university  a  sum  of 
money  to  be  used  according  to  their  best  ideas 
of  the  needs  of  the  university,  or  to  be  spent 
precisely  as  the  donor  desired. 

Mr.  Proctor's  answer  was  a  withdrawal  of 
\j  his  offer. 

The  withdrawal  naturally  caused  a  sensation 
and  brought  down  upon  the  head  of  President 
Wilson  all  the  vials  of  wrath  that  had  not  been 
already  emptied  upon  him.  It  was  inconceiv 
able  to  some  in  the  Board  of  Trustees,  to  a  large 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST     143 

number  of  the  alumni,  and  to  a  portion  of  the 
faculty,  that  a  gift  of  half  a  million  dollars 
(carrying  with  it  indeed  the  prospect  of  another 
half  million  —  for  this  had  already  been  nearly 
subscribed)  could  be  rejected,  on  any  considera 
tion  whatsoever.  Any  one  who  knows  how 
eagerly  funds  are  sought  by  the  trustees  of 
philanthropic  and  educational  institutions  can 
perhaps  understand  the  amazement  with  which 
many  of  the  graduates  of  a  college  heard  that  its 
president  had  actually  turned  down  the  prospect 
of  getting  a  million  dollars.  But  in  view  of  the 
perfectly  clear  position  taken  by  President  Wil 
son,  backed  at  that  time  by  the  majority  of  the 
trustees,  the  passionate  outcry  against  them 
shown  by  some  Princetonians  of  general  repute 
for  intelligence  and  conscience,  does  seem  inex 
plicable.  It  was  a  perfectly  clear  case.  Pres 
ident  Wilson  and  the  trustees  were  no  doubt 
infinitely  obliged  to  Mr.  Proctor;  they  were  eager 
to  accept  his  gift,  but  they  simply  could  not 
abrogate  the  duties  of  their  office  --  they  simply 
could  not  surrender  to  any  donor  the  right  to 
determine  the  university's  policy  in  so  grave  a 


144  WOODROW  WILSON 

matter  as  that  of  its  graduate  school.  It  was 
they  who  were  charged  with  the  duty  of  ad 
ministering  the  university  —  not  Mr.  Proctor. 
It  would  have  been  fatal  for  them  to  admit  the 
principle  that  a  rich  man  who  was  willing  to 
give  away  money  should,  therefore,  be  given 
the  right  to  dictate  the  educational  policy  of  the 
institution  of  which  others  were  the  elected 
officers.  They  were  not  there  to  allow  a  private 
plan  to  be  imposed  upon  the  university,  deter 
mining  its  future. 

Furthermore,  the  particular  plan  which  un 
conditional  acceptance  of  Mr.  Proctor's  gift 
would  have  forced  on  Princeton  was  one  utterly 
opposed  to  the  principles  in  devotion  to  which 
the  university  under  its  president's  gui  lance 
was  now  so  happily  advancing. 

To  President  Wilson  its  details  were  altogether 
obnoxious.  Since  the  subject  of  graduate  study 
had  been  taken  up,  the  dean  and  the  president 
had  moved  in  opposite  directions:  one  toward 
segregation  and  exclusiveness;  the  other  toward 
an  organic  whole,  cooperative,  shot  through 
with  a  common  motive  and  spirit,  and  stimu- 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST     145 

lated  by  a  common  life  of  give  and  take.  Doctor 
West  now  proposed  the  erection,  in  a  distant  part 
of  town,  of  a  sumptuous  building  where  a  selected 
group  of  young  gentlemen  of  peculiar  refinement 
were  to  live  in  cloistered  seclusion  the  life  of 
culture.  President  Wilson  had  his  own  plan 
for  a  graduate  school  —  a  plan  that  sprang 
naturally  out  of  the  new  system  of  studies  and 
the  preceptorial  organization  —  but  it  was  a' 
plan  that  contemplated  a  corps  of  highly  com 
petent  graduate  instructors,  proper  laboratories, 
an  adequate  library,  and  the  practical  essen 
tials  of  study  —  rather  than  the  embroidery  of 
fine  buildings  and  seclusion.  "A  university 
does  not  consist  of  buildings  or  of  apparatus," 
he  said.  "A  university  consists  of  students 
and  teachers."  HcTlookecT  oiPDean  West's 
plan  as  frivolous  and  unworthy  of  an  American 
university  conscious  of  its  duty  to  the  nation. 
He  argued  that  graduate  students  being  gener 
ally  mature  men  minded  to  pursue  practical  pro 
fessional  studies',  an  elaborate  and  peculiar  and 
ornamented  scheme  like  Dean  West's  would 
repel  rather  than  attract  them. 


146  WOODROW  WILSON 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  he  didn't  want  a 
hundred  nice  young  gentlemen  to  come  to 
Princeton  and  live  apart  pursuing  the  higher 
culture.  The  notion  violated  the  ideal  of 
democracy,  deliberately  set  about  to  create  a 
scholarly  aristocracy,  introduced  a  further  ele- 

v ment  of  disintegration  —  when  what  Princeton 

needed  was  integration.  His  own  thought  was 
aflame  with  the  picture  of  a  great  democratic 
society  of  students  in  which  under-graduates 
and  post-graduates  should  meet  and  mingle, 
the  contagion  of  education  flying  like  sparks 
struck  out  by  the  clash  of  mind  on  mind,  be 
ginners  discovering  that  scholars  were  vital  men 
with  red  blood  in  their  veins  exploring  the  mag 
ical  regions  of  still-undiscovered  truth,  while 
specialists  were  constantly  reminded  of  the 
common  underlying  body  of  truth  and  so  pre 
vented  from  growing  isolated,  unsympathetic, 
and  idiosyncranized. 

This  was  of  the  essence  of  the  whole  pro 
gramme  which  President  Wilson  had  been  per 
mitted  to  initiate  and  to  bring  so  far  toward 
success.  And  now  the  university  was  asked  to 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST     147 

abandon  it  for  a  million  dollars!    Mr.  Wilson 
exclaimed : 

The  whole  Princeton  idea  is  an  organic  idea,  an  idea 
of  contact  of  mind  with  mind  —  no  chasms,  no  divisions 
in  lif e  and  organization  —  a  grand  brotherhood  of  intel 
lectual  endeavor,  stimulating  the  younger,  instructing 
and  balancing  the  older  man,  giving  the  one  an  aspiration 
and  the  other  a  comprehension  of  what  the  whole  under 
taking  is  —  of  lifting,  lifting,  lifting  the  mind  of  successive 
generations  from  age  to  age! 

That  is  the  enterprise  of  knowledge,  an  enterprise  that 
is  the  common  undertaking  of  all  men  who  pray  for  the 
greater  enlightenment  of  the  ages  to  come.  If  you  do 
anything  to  mar  this  process,  this  organic  integration  of 
the  university,  what  have  you  done?  You  have  destroyed 
the  Princeton  idea  which  for  the  time  being  has  arrested 
the  attention  of  the  academic  world.  Is  that  good  busi 
ness?  When  we  have  leadership  in  our  grasp,  is  it  good 
business  to  retire  from  it?  When  the  country  is  looking 
to  us  as  men  who  prefer  ideas  even  to  money,  are  we  going 
to  withdraw  and  say,  "After  all,  we  find  we  were  mis 
taken:  we  prefer  money  to  ideas?" 

This  may  be  as  good  a  point  as  any  at  which 
to  make  it  clear  that  the  anti-Wilson  sentiment 
was  far  from  general  among  the  alumni;  it  was 


148  WOODROW  WILSON 

practically  confined  to  the  cities  of  the  East. 
In  the  Board  of  Trustees,  fourteen  out  of  the 
thirty  took  their  stand  against  him;  the  deciding 
few  wavered.  The  fine  body  of  faculty  mem 
bers  engaged  in  graduate  work  were  practically 
unanimous  in  their  support  of  the  president's 
sound,  scholarly,  and  practical  plans,  and  en 
tirely  unsympathetic  with  the  ornate  dreams  of 
the  dean.  As  for  the  students,  never  for  a 
moment  did  he  have  reason  to  doubt  their  es 
sential  soundness;  they  were  caught  in  the  toils 
of  a  vicious  system,  but  they  furnished  the  best 
of  material  for  the  development  of  a  true 
American  university  along  democratic  lines. 
Throughout  the  graduate  school  controversy 
they  were  ardent  Wilson  men,  though,  of  course, 
powerless  to  influence  the  result. 

With  the  Proctor  offer  withdrawn,  the  original 
plan  was  reverted  to  for  a  modest  graduate 
school  beginning,  financed  with  the  Swann  be 
quest.  And  it  was  in  such  wise  as  this  that  the 
president  spoke  justifying  his  position: 

It  is  a  matter  of  universal  regret  that  anything  should 
have  occurred  which  seemed  to  show,  on  the  part  of 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST      149 

the  university  authorities,  a  lack  of  appreciation  of  Mr. 
Proctor's  generosity  and  love  of  the  university.  It  is  to 
be  hoped  that  the  mere  progress  of  our  plans  will  show  that 
no  purpose  was  entertained  by  any  one  which  need  have 
led  to  any  misunderstanding.  Our  gratitude  to  Mr. 
Proctor  on  behalf  of  the  university  is  not  in  any  way 
diminished  or  clouded  by  his  decision  to  withdraw  the 
offer  he  so  liberally  made. 

The  thought  which  constantly  impresses  and  leads  us 
at  Princeton,  and  which  I  am  sure  prevails  among  the 
great  body  of  her  alumni,  is  that  we  are  one  and  all  of  us 
trustees  to  carry  out  a  great  idea  and  strengthen  a  great 
tradition  of  national  service.  We  are  not  at  liberty  to  use 
Princeton  for  our  private  purposes  or  to  adapt  her  in  any 
way  to  our  own  use  and  pleasure.  It  is  our  bounden  duty 
to  make  her  more  and  more  responsive  to  the  intellectual 
and  moral  needs  of  a  great  nation.  It  is  our  duty  at  every 
point  in  our  development  to  look  from  the  present  to  the 
future,  to  see  to  it  that  Princeton  adapts  herself  to  a  great 
national  development,  that  her  first  thought  shall  be  to 
serve  the  men  who  come  to  her  in  the  true  spirit  of  the  age 
and  in  the  true  spirit  of  knowledge.  We  should  be  for 
ever  condemned  in  the  public  judgment  and  in  our  own 
conscience  if  we  used  Princeton  for  any  private  purpose 
whatever.  It  will  be  our  pleasure,  as  it  is  our  duty,  to 
confirm  the  tradition  which  has  made  us  proud  of  her  in 
the  past  and  put  her  at  the  service  of  those  influential 


150  WOODROW  WILSON 

generations  of  scholars  and  men  of  affairs  who  are  to  play 
their  part  in  making  the  future  of  America. 


But  the  opposition  was  not  to  be  met  on  any 
such  ground  of  quiet  argument  and  high  appeal. 
Mr.  Wilson  never  permitted  himself  to  approach 
or  suggest  personalities  (however  besought  by 
graduates  in  distant  cities  to  "tell  them  all  the 
truth");  the  opposition  betook  itself  to  sheer 
slander  and  abuse.  Much  may  be  forgiven 
earnest  men,  but  it  is  simply  inexplicable  that 
college  trustees,  professors,  and  alumni  could 
have  indulged  in  the  vituperative  bitterness  that 
found  its  way  into  privately  circulated  pam 
phlets  and  round-robins  and  into  public  print. 

The  fact  is  that  the  discussion  of  the  "quad" 
system  and  of  the  rights  of  a  donor  to  dictate 
how  his  money  should  be  used  had  revealed 
the  existence  of  a  bottomless  chasm  in  the  ways 
of  thinking,  in  the  attitude  of  spirit  that  charac 
terized  two  sets  of  Princeton  men.  It  was  the 
chasm  that  divides  democracy  and  aristocracy, 
respect  for  the  rights  of  manhood  and  submis 
sion  to  the  rights  of  property.  It  was  an  in- 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST     151 

eradicable  instinct  in  President  Wilson  and  the 
men  who  supported  him  that  the  life  of  students 
must  be  made  democratic;  the  opposition  felt 
no  indignation  at  the  existence  in  college  of  those 
social  distinctions  which  they  believed  must  al 
ways  prevail  out  in  the  world.  President  Wil 
son  and  his  supporters  could  not  brook  the  idea 
that  a  man  of  wealth  should  undertake  to  dic 
tate  the  policy  of  a  school  professedly  conducted 
by  men  who  were  giving  their  lives  to  the  prob 
lems  of  education. 

"I  cannot  accede,"  he  wrote,  "to  the  accept 
ance  of  gifts  upon  terms  which  take  the  educa 
tional  policy  of  the  university  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  trustees  and  faculty  and  permit  it  to  be 
determined  by  those  who  give  money." 

Those  who  were  enthusiastic  for  a  university 
in  which  social  lines  should  be  obliterated  and  a 
group  of  coordinate  democracies  set  up  were 
divided  from  those  who  were  content  to  main 
tain  and  even  accentuate  distinctions  by  a 
cleavage  as  deep  as  any  that  exists  in  the  world 
to-day.  No  wonder  that  the  partisans  of  the 
opposition,  in  the  Board  and  out,  looked  on 


152  WOODROW  WILSON 

Wilson  as  a  dangerous  man ;  no  wonder  that  he, 
slowly  aroused  by  their  villification,  began  oc 
casionally  to  unslip  the  leash  of  his  tongue, 
denounce  colleges  and  churches  for  yielding  to 
"the  accursed  domination  of  money,"  and  make 
impassioned  appeals  for  a  declaration  of  college 
independence.  When  the  going  is  rapid,  Wilson 
isn't  the  man  to  bother  about  a  shock-absorber. 
At  Pittsburg,  addressing  alumni,  he  poured 

% 

out  all  his  soul: 

You  can't  spend  four  years  at  one  of  our  modern  uni 
versities  without  getting  in  your  thought  the  conviction 
which  is  most  dangerous  to  America  —  namely,  that  you 
must  treat  with  certain  influences  which  now  dominate  in 
the  commercial  undertakings  of  the  country. 

The  great  voice  of  America  does  not  come  from  seats  of 
learning.  It  comes  in  a  murmur  from  the  hills  and  woods 
and  the  farms  and  factories  and  the  mills,  rolling  on  and 
gaining  volume  until  it  comes  to  us  from  the  homes  of 
common  men.  Do  these  murmurs  echo  in  the  corridors 
of  universities?  I  have  not  heard  them. 

The  universities  would  make  men  forget  their  common 
origins,  forget  their  universal  sympathies,  and  join  a  class 
—  and  no  class  ever  can  serve  America. 

I  have  dedicated  every  power  that  there  is  within  me 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST      153 

to  bring  the  colleges  that  I  have  anything  to  do  with  to  an 
absolutely  democratic  regeneration  in  spirit,  and  I  shall 
not  be  satisfied  —  and  I  hope  you  will  not  be  —  until 
America  shall  know  that  the  men  in  the  colleges  are  satu 
rated  with  the  same  thought,  the  same  sympathy,  that 
pulses  through  the  whole  great  body  politic. 

I  know  that  the  colleges  of  this  country  must  be  recon 
structed  from  top  to  bottom,  and  I  know  that  America 
is  going  to  demand  it.  While  Princeton  men  pause  and 
think,  I  hope  —  and  the  hope  arises  out  of  the  great  love 
I  share  with  you  all  for  our  inimitable  alma  mater  —  I  hope 
that  they  will  think  on  these  things,  that  they  will  forget 
tradition  in  the  determination  to  see  to  it  that  the  free 
air  of  America  shall  permeate  every  cranny  of  their 
college. 

Will  America  tolerate  the  seclusion  of  graduate  stu 
dents?  Will  America  tolerate  the  idea  of  having  graduate 
students  set  apart?  America  will  tolerate  nothing  except 
unpatronized  endeavor.  Seclude  a  man,  separate  him 
from  the  rough  and  tumble  of  college  life,  from  all  the 
contacts  of  every  sort  and  condition  of  men,  and  you  have 
done  a  thing  which  America  will  brand  with  its  contempt 
uous  disapproval. 

To  an  utterance  like  that  there  could  be  no 
reply;  hi  an  issue  thus  clearly  defined  before  the 
whole  world  (for  the  Pittsburg  speech  got  into 


154  WOODROW  WILSON 

the  papers  and  all  America  applauded)  no  living 
board  of  college  trustees  would  have  dared  sepa 
rate  itself  from  the  bold  speaker. 

No  reply?  No  living  men  to  take  issue?  Be 
hold  how  the  President  of  the  Immortals  jests 
with  us: 

In  the  town  of  Salem,  Mass.,  lived  an  old  man 
named  Isaac  C.  Wyman  —  so  old  that  his  father 
had  fought  at  the  battle  of  Princeton,  January 
3,  1777.  They  were  rich  even  then,  the  Wy- 
mans,  for  the  father's  father  had  given  General 
Washington  £40,000  for  his  army,  as  a  yellow 
slip  of  paper  signed  by  the  Revolutionary  com 
mander  still  attests.  Isaac  had  been  graduated 
at  the  College  of  New  Jersey  one  June  day  in 
1848.  During  the  sixty-two  years  since  that 
day  he  had  never  returned  to  Princeton.  But 
now,  the  time  having  come  to  die,  and  he,  being 
of  sound  and  disposing  mind,  made  his  will,  and 
paid  the  debt  of  nature. 

President  Wilson's  Pittsburg  speech  was  made 
on  April  17  (this  was  in  1910).  A  month  and  a 
day  later,  May  18,  by  the  decease  of  Isaac  C. 
Wyman,  the  Graduate  College  of  Princeton 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST      155 

University  became  the  legatee  of  an  estate 
estimated  at  more  than  three  millions  of  dollars 
bequeathed  in  the  trusteeship  of  John  M.  Ray 
mond  of  Salem  and  Andrew  F.  West  of  Prince 
ton. 

There  is  no  quarreling  with  the  dead. 

At  the  June  trustee  meeting  the  Proctor  offer 
was  renewed  and  accepted.  The  president 
made  a  polite  announcement  of  his  acquiescence 
in  the  situation  created  by  the  miraculous 
windfall;  the  gigantic  new  fund  altered  every 
thing.  The  university  architect  was  put  to 
work  on  a  scheme  of  magnificent  proportions. 

Commencement  was  a  season  of  careful  ob 
servance  of  all  outward  amenities.  The  pres 
ident  made  the  speech  presenting  M.  Taylor 
Pyne,  Esq.,  the  leader  of  the  opposition  among 
the  trustees,  with  a  gold  cup,  celebrating  the  at 
tainment  of  his  twenty -fifth  year  as  a  trustee. 
He  attended  a  dinner  given  by  Dean  West  in 
honor  of  Mr.  Proctor.  All  that  a  man  forced  to 
confess  himself  defeated  by  events  could  grace 
fully  do,  he  did.  What  it  cost  his  soul  no  man 


156  WOODROW  WILSON 

could  guess.  A  moral  defeat  he  had  not  suffered. 
The  principle  for  which  he  had  stood  had  not 
been  disproved,  discredited,  or  annulled;  the 
gods  had  overwhelmed  it,  that  was  all. 

Of  course,  he  was  laughed  at,  sneered  at  even 
by  certain  alumni,  called  on  to  resign.  If  they 
had  dared,  the  triumphant  party  would  have 
dismissed  him;  they  did  not  dare:  Woodrow 
Wilson  was  too  strong  before  the  country. 
There  was  this  fly  in  the  ointment  of  their  re 
joicing:  an  alumni  trustee  was  being  elected  this 
year  as  usual,  and  it  was  the  turn  of  the  West  to 
name  him.  But  Eastern  anti-Wilsonists  had 
put  up  a  candidate  and  made  a  frenzied  cam 
paign  for  him.  At  Commencement  the  result 
was  made  known:  the  anti-Wrilson  man,  Mr. 
-Joline,  had  been  overwhelmingly  beaten.  But 
the  president  himself  felt  that  his  work  at  Prince 
ton  was  done.  He  had  come  to  that  alternative 
of  the  Happy  \Varrior;  of  one 

Who  if  he  rise  to  station  of  command 
Rises  by  open  means;  and  there  will  stand 
On  honorable  terms,  or  else  retire, 
And  in  himself  possess  his  own  desire. 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST      157 

He  was  to  retire  —  but  not  to  obscurity,  even 
temporary.  The  country  had  not  missed  al 
together  what  was  going  on  at  Princeton.  The 
state  had  been  watching  him.  And  now  there 
came  rolling  up  from  the  people,  the  people  out 
side  of  the  colleges,  the  citizens  for  whom  col 
leges  exist,  a  great  shout  that  this  man  was  the 
sort  of  man  that  ought  to  be  leading  the  fight 
for  their  cause  out  in  the  world  of  real  affairs. 
Politicians  heard  that  call,  and  shrewdly  joined 
it.  September  15th,  a  New  Jersey  State  Conven 
tion  —  that  of  the  Democratic  party  -  -  in  ses 
sion  at  Trenton,  nominated  Woodrow  Wilson 
for  the  Governorship.  He  was  at  Princeton  / 
when  they  brought  him  the  news;  he  climbed  / 
into  a  motor-car,  and  in  twenty  minutes  stooj/ 
on  the  platform  before  a  shouting  throng  and 
accepted  their  invitation. 

A  week  later  Princeton  University  opened 
for  a  new  term,  with  the  resignation  of  its  pres 
ident  in  the  hands  of  the  trustees  —  who,  in 
due  time  voted  him  all  manner  of  compli 
mentary  resolutions,  made  him  still  another 
kind  of  Doctor,  inexpressibly  regretted  his 


158  WOODROW  WILSON 

resignation  —  and  accepted  it,  on  the  part  of  a 
small  majority  with  thanks  unspoken,  but  in 
finite  in  their  sincerity.  November  8th  the  peo 
ple  of  New  Jersey,  by  a  great  majority,  made 
him  Governor. 

They  are  fashioning  at  Princeton  a  splendid 
fabric  of  stone,  which  will  dominate  the  land 
scape  for  many  miles.  Three  great  fortunes  go 
into  it,  refined  culture  planned  it,  and  rare 
architectural  skill  is  uprearing  it.  Nothing  out 
side  of  Oxford  will  excel  it  in  dimensions,  nothing 
anywhere  match  it  in  sumptuous  luxury.  No 
doubt  it  will  be  the  beautiful  home  of  successive 
generations  of  young  gentlemen  who  will  be  a 
credit  to  our  intellectual  life.  The  clubs  on 
Prospect  Avenue  still  house  lucky  youths  in 
delightful  existence  unthreatened  now  by  an 
impracticable  idealist. 

But  somehow  a  spirit  is  departed  that  for  a 
while  moved  like  a  refreshing  breeze  on  campus 
and  in  hall.  Because,  for  a  while,  Princeton 
promised  to  be  something  more  than  a  college 
for  rich  men's  sons. 


GRADUATE  COLLEGE  CONTEST      159 

In  days  to  come,  when  the  ivy  is  over  ihe\ 
Graduate  College  and  the  clubs  as  it  is  now  over  \ 
Nassau,  the  most  interesting  tale  that  men  will  / 
tell  at  Princeton  will  be  the  story  of  a  battle  —  / 
that  was  lost;  and  of  a  leader  who  was  refused! 
and  sent  away  —  only  to  become  a  captain  in/ 
the  broad  field  of  an  historic  national  struggle.  / 


T 


CHAPTER  X 

OUT    OF    PRINCETON    INTO    POLITICS 

HE  state  of  New  Jersey  at  the  beginning 


I  of  the  year  1910  was  in  the  case  of 
many  another  commonwealth  in  this 
Union  of  States.  It  was  in  the  grip  of  the 
politicians  and  the  corporations,  and  the  good 
people  resident  within  its  borders  had  about  as 
much  voice  in  the  management  of  their  public 
affairs  as  they  had  in  deciding  the  weather  or 
determining  the  phases  of  the  moon.  For  years 
the  state  government  had  been  run  by  agents  of 
"the  interests"  -for  a  time,  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  predominating,  more  recently  a  com 
bination  of  electric  light  and  power  companies, 
gas  companies,  and  trolley  lines,  controlled  by 
the  Prudential  Insurance  Company  and  the 
malodorous  United  Gas  Improvement  Company 
of  Philadelphia. 

Laterly  it  was  the  Republican  Organization 

160 


INTO  POLITICS  161 

that  had  been  in  power  at  Trenton,  but  the 
system  was  really  a  bi-partisan  one.  The 
Republican  bosses  —  Senator  John  Dryden, 
Senator  John  Kean,  ex-Governor  Franklin  Mur 
phy,  ex-Governor  Edward  C.  Stokes,  and  David 
P.  Baird  —  had  come  to  be  known  as  the  "Board 
of  Guardians,"  in  which  the  public  service,  rail 
road,  insurance,  and  other  corporation  interests  I 
were  duly  represented.  The  Democratic  Or-^ 
ganization  was  the  private  property  of  James 
Smith,  Jr.,  a  politician  \vho  had  made  his  way 
into  the  United  States  Senate  in  consequence  of 
having  delivered  the  vote  of  the  Jersey  delega 
tion  to  Mr.  Cleveland  at  the  Democratic 
National  Convention  of  1892,  and  who  had  re 
tired  from  that  body  under  criticisms  connected 
with  certain  scandals  incidental  to  the  framing 
of  the  Wilson  tariff.  Ex-Senator  Smith  is  a 
polished  man  of  affairs  whose  business  interests 
are  identical  with  those  of  his  friends  on  the 
Republican  "Board  of  Guardians."  His  chief 
lieutenant  was  James  R.  Nugent,  a  typical  rep 
resentative  of  the  old-style,  strong-arm  methods 
in  politics.  "Bob"  Davis,  the  thrifty  boss  of 


162  WOODROW  WILSON 

Hudson  County,  sometimes  rebelled  against  his 
feudal  lord  and  sometimes  played  in  with  him, 
but  between  Smith  and  Davis,  the  organization 
through  a  dozen  lean  years  had  existed  to  garner 
the  spoils  of  municipal  jobs  and  contracts  in 
Newark,  Jersey  City,  and  Hoboken;  to  fill  a  few 
minority  memberships  on  state  commissions  of 
one  sort  and  another;  and  to  furnish  the  Re 
publican  machine  with  needed  help  in  time  of 
danger. 

However,  the  great  moral  movement  which 
during  the  last  five  years  has  been  abroad  in  the 
land,  had  not  left  New  Jersey  unaware  of  its 
gathering  power.  The  leaders  of  both  parties 
were  forced  to  heed  it.  In  the  Republican  party 
Everett  Colby,  George  L.  Record,  and  others 
stirred  up  a  dangerous  enthusiasm  among  "new 
idea  Republicans."  Somehow,  somewhere,  by 
some  one,  there  was  suggested  to  Mr.  Smith's 
organization  a  plan  of  getting  aboard  the  re 
form  wagon  and  riding  on  it  into  power.  The 
fight  against  privilege  and  the  championship 
of  democracy  in  college  life  captained  by  the 
president  of  Princeton  University  had  attracted 


WOODROW  WILSON,  AGE  23 

The  picture  was  taken  in  1879  when  he  was  a  Senior  in  Princeton 
University 


INTO  POLITICS  163 

the  attention  of  the  state  and  now  suggested 
him  as  a  man  who  could  lead  a  party  to  victory 
under  the  banner  of  political  reform.  President 
Wilson  was  a  student  of  public  affairs  of  author 
ity  throughout  the  country;  he  was  an  accom 
plished  and  persuasive  speaker;  a  man  of  lofty 
character  and  winning  personality.  Indeed, 
from  outside  the  state,  from  the  press  of  many 
cities,  had  come  the  suggestion  that  the  nation 
would  be  fortunate  if  it  could  place  such  a  man 
as  Wilson  in  the  Presidential  chair. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  see  how  the  idea  of  run 
ning  Wilson  for  Governor  needed  only  present 
itself  to  the  imagination  of  a  shrewd  boss  to  be 
come  immediately  congenial.  Mr.  Smith  had 
a  son  at  Princeton  and  had  on  one  or  two  oc 
casions  exchanged  greetings  with  the  head  of  the 
college,  but  there  was  no  real  acquaintance  be 
tween  the  two  men,  and  the  Democratic  leader 
no  doubt  naturally  imagined  that  a  learned  col 
legian  would  be  as  putty  in  the  hands  of  an  ex 
perienced  politician  —  especially  if  his  eyes  were 
rose-spectacled  by  the  promise  of  a  nomination 
for  President.  The  man  was  a  hero  for  pro- 


16i  WOODROW  WILSON 

gressive,  independent  citizens  everywhere  and 
especially  within  the  state  where  he  was  best 
known;  a  spontaneous  popular  feeling  that  he 
would  make  an  ideal  Governor  had  arisen;  what 
could  be  better  politics  than  to  become  sponsor 
of  his  nomination  and  use  his  popularity  for  a 
ride  back  to  power? 

During  the  early  summer  of  1910  President 
Wilson  was  told  by  a  number  of  his  friends  that 
he  could  probably  have  the  Democratic  nomina 
tion  for  Governor  if  he  desired  it.  These  inti 
mations  became  so  numerous  and  so  pointed  and 
were  accompanied  by  so  many  assurances  of  the 
benefit  the  party  and  the  state  would  derive 
from  his  acceptance  that  Mr.  Wilson  was  con 
strained  to  lend  them  a  favorable  ear.  His 
work  at  Princeton  was  apparently  arrested - 
that  he  realized. 

And  yet  the  prospective  nominee  was  pro 
foundly  puzzled.  While  sentiment  among  the 
best  class  of  voters  throughout  the  state  was 
strong,  the  practical  overtures  came  from  the 
organization  headed  by  Smith.  Mr.  Wilson 
was  perfectly  aware  of  ex-Senator  Smith's 


INTO  POLITICS  165 

political  character  and  history;  he  knew  what 
the  organization  was.  How  could  such  a  gang 
support  him?  What  quid  did  they  expect  for 
their  quo?  Were  they  deceiving  themselves  as 
to  their  man?  Did  they  fancy  that  his  life 
long  detestation  of  corrupt  politics  was  simply 
pose?  Or  were  they  merely  willing  to  take  him 
because  they  knew  he  was  the  only  sure  chance 
of  party  victory?  Willing  to  have  an  incor 
ruptible  Governor  if  it  were  impossible  otherwise 
to  get  a  Democratic  Governor?  Did  Smith 
regard  the  schoolmaster  as  a  simple  soul  who 
would  hand  out  corporation  favors  without 
knowing?  Did  he  expect  to  get  a  United  States 
Senatorship  through  the  Democratic  legislature 
which  Wilson's  popularity  was  likely  to  elect? 

On  that  point  Mr.  Wilson  made  specific 
inquiry  of  the  gentlemen  who  came  to  him  on 
their  puzzling  errand.  He  required  their  assur 
ance  that  Mr.  Smith  would  not  seek  the  Senator- 
ship.  "Were  he  to  do  so,  while  I  was  Governor," 
he  told  them,  "I  should  have  to  oppose  him.  He 
represents  everything  repugnant  to  my  con 
victions."  They  told  him  categorically  that 


166  WOODROW  WILSON 

Smith  had  no  idea  of  going  back  to  the  Senate; 
that  he  was  a  man  thought  to  be  sick  with  a 
dangerous  constitutional  ailment  and  borne 
down  by  domestic  bereavement  and  that  he 
was  definitely  out  of  politics.  Furthermore, 
they  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
election  laws  of  New  Jersey  called  for  a  primary, 
in  which  the  respective  parties  by  popular  vote 
selected  their  candidates  for  Senator.  James 
Smith,  Jr.,  would  not  enter  that  primary  race. 
Nothing  could  be  more  convincing  on  that  score. 

Talking  afterward  of  his  perplexity  at  this 
time,  Governor  Wilson  said: 

"I  was  asked  to  allow  myself  to  be  nominated, 
and  for  a  long  time  it  was  impossible  for  me  to 
understand  why  I  had  been  asked.  The  gentle 
men  who  wanted  to  nominate  me  were  going 
outside  the  ranks  of  recognized  politicians  and 
picking  out  a  man  whom  they  knew  would  be 
regarded  as  an  absolutely  independent  person 
and  whom  I  thought  they  knew  was  an  abso 
lutely  independent  person.  I  tried  to  form  a 
working  theory  as  to  why  they  should  do  it.  I 
asked  very  direct  and  impertinent  questions  of 


INTO  POLITICS  167 

some  of  the  gentlemen  as  to  why  they  wanted 
me  to  make  the  run.  They  didn't  give  me  any 
very  satisfactory  explanation,  so  I  had  to  work 
one  out  for  myself.  I  concluded  on  the  whole 
that  these  gentlemen  had  been  driven  to  recog 
nize  that  a  new  day  had  come  in  American 
politics,  and  that  they  would  have  to  conduct 
themselves  henceforth  after  a  new  fashion. 
Moreover,  there  were  certain  obvious  practical 
advantages  to  be  gained  by  the  old-time  man 
agers.  Whether  they  could  control  the  Gover 
nor  or  not,  a  Democratic  victory  would  restore 
their  local  prestige  and  give  them  control  of  a 
score  of  things  in  which  the  Governor  could  not 
command  them,  even  if  he  wished.  It  was  one 
thing  to  put  a  Governor  in  and  a  legislature;  it 
was  another  to  control  their  counties  and  mu 
nicipalities." 

The  sequel  will  show  how  accurate  was  this 
theory. 

On  Tuesday,  July  12,  1910,  a  number  of 
gentlemen  gathered  in  a  private  room  of  the 
Laywers'  Club,  120  Broadway,  New  York,  to 
inquire  of  Mr.  Wilson  whether  he  w^ould  allow 


168  WOODROW  WILSON 

his  name  to  be  presented  to  the  New  Jersey 
Democratic  State  Convention.  At  that  meet 
ing  were  present  Robert  S.  Hudspeth,  national 
committeeman  for  New  Jersey;  James  R.  Nu 
gent,  state  chairman;  Eugene  F.  Kinkead,  Con 
gressman;  Richard  V.  Lindabury,  George  Har 
vey,  and  Milan  Ross.  But  one  practical  inquiry 
was  made  of  Mr.  Wilson;  it  was  voiced  by  Mr. 
Hudspeth,  and  was  in  substance  this: 

"Doctor  Wilson,  there  have  been  some  politi 
cal  reformers  who,  after  they  have  been  elected 
to  office  as  candidates  of  one  party  or  the  other, 
have  shut  the  doors  in  the  face  of  the  Organiza 
tion  leaders,  refusing  even  to  listen  to  them.  Is 
it  your  idea  that  a  Governor  must  refuse  to 
acknowledge  his  party  organization?" 

"Not  at  all,"  Mr.  Wilson  replied.  "I  have 
always  been  a  believer  in  party  organizations. 
If  I  were  elected  Governor  I  should  be  very  glad 
to  consult  with  the  leaders  of  the  Democratic 
Organization.  I  should  refuse  to  listen  to  no 
man,  but  I  should  be  especially  glad  to  hear  and 
duly  consider  the  suggestions  of  the  leaders  of 
my  party.  If,  on  my  own  idependent  investi- 


INTO  POLITICS  169 

gation,  I  found  that  recommendations  for  ap 
pointment  made  to  me  by  the  Organization 
leaders  named  the  best  possible  men,  I  should 
naturally  prefer,  other  things  being  equal,  to 
appoint  them,  as  the  men  pointed  out  by  the 
combined  counsels  of  the  party." 

On  July  15th,  Mr.  Wilson  issued  a  public 
statement  in  which  he  said  that  if  it  were  the 
wish  "of  a  decided  majority  of  the  thoughtful 
Democrats  of  the  state"  that  he  should  be  their 
candidate  for  Governor,  he  would  accept  thej 
nomination. 

The  announcement  caused  a  sensation.  It 
was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  many  men  of 
both  parties,  yet  there  were  not  lacking  those 
who  were  so  suspicious  of  Smith  and  his  associ 
ate  bosses  that  they  could  not  believe  the 
nomination  was  to  be  given  Mr.  Wilson  without 
pledges  from  him.  Again,  some  of  the  best  and 
most  intelligent  men  of  the  Democratic  party, 
while  they  did  not  doubt  the  integrity  of  the  pro 
posed  nominee,  did  fear  that  his  inexperience  in 
practical  politics  would  make  him  an  easy  in 
strument  of  the  gang.  Mr.  Wilson  had  been 


170  WOODROW  WILSON 

assured  that  only  his  consent  was  necessary  for 
his  unchallenged  nomination,  but  in  fact  oppo 
sition  to  it  at  once  arose  and  continued  until 
the  convention  balloted.  Three  other  Demo 
crats —  Frank  S.  Katzenbach,  George  S.  Sil- 
zer,  and  H.  Otto  Wittpen  —  immediately  en 
tered  the  ring.  Wittpen  was  the  successful 
Mayor  of  Jersey  City  and  the  sworn  foe  of 
"Bob"  Davis;  Davis,  though  lately  he  had 
quarreled  with  Smith,  was  now  reconciled,  and 
threw  his  Jersey  City  organization  for  Wilson's 
candidacy. 

After  issuing  his  statement,  Mr.  W7ilson  went 
to  the  little  town  of  Lyme,  Conn.,  where  he  has 
been  in  the  habit  of  spending  his  summers,  and 
-  spent  his  summer.  He  moved  not  one  of  his 
ten  fingers  in  behalf  of  the  nomination.  Cer 
tain  other  people,  however,  were  moving  every 
thing  movable  to  that  end.  The  fact  that  the 
Smith  crowd  was  advocating  him  puzzled  many 
who  otherwise  would  have  been  his  foremost  sup 
porters.  It  was  only  (as  Mr.  Wilson  afterward 
learned  to  his  amazement)  by  sharp  diagooning 
that  a  majority  sufficient  to  make  him  the  choice 


INTO  POLITICS  171 

was  seated  in  the  Trenton  Convention  on  Sep 
tember  15th. 

The  speech  made  in  that  body  by  Clarence 
Cole,  formally  putting  Princeton's  president 
nomination,  was  interrupted  by  jeers,  cat-calls, 
and  sarcastic  questions.  A  few  remarks  made 
by  Mr.  Smith  were,  however,  closely  listened  to. 
The  Big  Boss  said  that  he  had  no  personal  ac 
quaintance  with  Mr.  Wilson.  Mr.  Wilson  and 
he  did  not  move  in  the  same  world.  He  had 
never  conversed  with  him.  Had  conditions 
been  different,  he  should  have  preferred  a  can 
didate  identified  with  the  Organization.  But  it 
was  necessary  to  find  a  man  who  could  be  elected.^ 
Mr.  Wilson  was  a  Democrat  and  he  could  be 
elected ;  he  knew  nobody  else  who  for  a  certainty 
could  be.  Therefore  he  was  for  Wilson,  who 
had  consented  to  accept  a  nomination  without 
any  private  obligations  or  undertakings  what 
ever  —  he  was  for  him  on  the  ground  that  it  was_ 
time  New  Jersey  had  a  Democratic  Governor.  / 

These  were  sagacious  sentences  —  and  had  / 
the  incidental  merit  of  telling  the  truth.  It  is  / 
undeniable  that  Smith  organized  the  WilsonX 


172  WOODROW  WILSON 

candidacy;  it  is  the  curious  fact,  however,  that 
he  could  insure  its  success  only  by  publicly 
separating  himself  from  it  as  far  as  he  could. 

On  the  first  ballot,  709  votes  being  necessary 
to  a  choice,  Woodrow  Wilson  received  749 
and  was  declared  the  nominee  for  Governor. 
Hastily  summoned  from  Princeton,  eleven  miles 
away,  he  appeared  on  the  platform  and  made  a 
speech  of  acceptance  so  ringing  in  its  assertion 
of  independence  and  so  trumpet-toned  in  its 
utterance  of  the  principles  of  progressive  democ 
racy  that  the  convention  was  fairly  carried  off 
its  feet.  Few  of  the  delegates  had  ever  seen  or 
heard  Mr.  Wilson.  Had  he  made  that  speech 
before  the  ballot  —  there  would  have  been  no 
ballot.  Having  made  it,  he  became  the  candi 
date  of  a  united  and  enthusiastic  party. 

The  language  in  which  Mr.  Wilson  made  clear 
to  the  convention  the  circumstances  under  which 
he  was  accepting  the  nomination  was  as  follows : 

I  did  not  seek  this  nomination.  I  have  made  no  pledge 
and  have  given  no  promise.  Still  more,  not  only  was  no 
promise  asked,  but  as  far  as  I  know,  none  was  desired. 
If  elected,  as  J  expect  to  be,  I  am  left  absolutely  free  to 


INTO  POLITICS  173 

serve  you  with  all  singleness  of  purpose.     It  is  a  new  era      / 
when  these  things  can  be  said. 

In  the  first  speech  of  his  campaign,  at  Jersey 
City,  September  28th,  the  candidate  said: 

Some  gentlemen  on  this  platform  can  tell  you  more  \ 
specifically  than  I  can  that  I  did  not  seek  the  nomination 
as  Governor.  They  were  generous  enough  to  offer  it  to 
me,  and  because  they  offered  it  to  me  they  were  generous 
enough  to  let  me  understand  that  I  was  under  no  obliga 
tion  to  any  individual  or  group  of  individuals. 

Now  this  story  of  Mr.  Wilson's  nomination  is 
worth  telling  in  some  detail  because,  in  the  first 
place,  it  is  a  funny  story,  in  the  light  of  its  se 
quel;  and  because,  in  the  second  place,  it  has  to 
do  with  the  charge  of  "  ingratitude"  — the 
gravest  brought  against  New  Jersey's  Governor. 
"What  do  you  think  of  Woodrow  Wilson?"  a 
New  York  reporter  asked  Mr.  Richard  Croker 
on  the  latest  of  those  brief  visits  which  the  ex- 
Tammany  chieftain  deigns  occasionally  to  pay 
to  the  land  and  city  now  bereft  of  his  political 
leadership.  "Nothing  to  say,"  replied  Mr. 
Croker.  After  a  few  pulls  at  his  cigar,  however, 


174  WOODROW  WILSON 

he  brought  out:  "An  ingrate  is  no  good  in 
politics." 

Which  is  sound  political  sagacity.  Is  Wilson 
an  ingrate? 

After  a  few  speeches  in  which  it  was  apparent 
that  the  nominee  had  a  little  difficulty  in  bring 
ing  himself  to  ask  anybody  to  vote  for  him, 
Mr.  Wrilson  developed  unusual  power  as  a  cam 
paigner.  The  speeches  required  of  a  candidate 
are  not  of  the  nature  of  those  in  which  a  col 
lege  president  or  a  polished  occasional  orator  is 
practised,  but  this  candidate  had  things  to  say 
on  which  his  convictions  were  so  strong  and  his 
sense  of  their  importance  so  great  that  he  soon 
learned  language  that  caught  the  ear  and  won 
the  warm  attention  of  the  great  body  of  the 
plain  voters  of  New  Jersey.  He  talked  to  them 
of  the  need  of  dragging  public  business  out  of 
private  rooms  where  secret  interests  and  pro 
fessional  political  jobbers  conspire,  into  the  open 

air  where  all  might  see  what  is  being  done;  of  the 

^» 

[  need  of  new  political  machinery  that  the  people 
I  might  resume  the  control  of  their  own  affairs; 
\  he  talked  of  the  vast  social  and  industrial 


> — i 


INTO  POLITICS  175 

changes  of  the  past  twenty  years,  making  necesA 
sary  the  renovation  of  all  our  old  social  and  in 
dustrial  ideas;  of  the  need  of  new  relations  be 
tween  workingmen  and  their  employers,  now 
that  these  are  days  of  great  corporations;  of  the 
need  of  regulating  strictly  those  corporations; 
talked  simply,  straightforwardly,  of  all  manner 
of  specific  public  things  in  a  way  that  brought 
them  home  to  the  individual  voter  with  a  new 
sense  of  his  own  personal  concern  in  them  and 
awakened  in  him  a  new  realization  of  his  duty, 
his  power,  and  his  opportunity.  He  not  only 
did  this;  he  lifted  political  discussion  to  a  new 
plane,  till  at  every  meeting  the  audience  was 
thrilled  with  the  consciousness  that  the  problems 
of  to-day  are  gigantic,  critical,  big  with  the  pur 
poses  of  Providence,  as  they  heard  this  man  pic 
ture  them  on  the  broad  background  of  history, 
in  the  inspiration  of  a  soul  aflame  with  love  of 
common  humanity  and  faith  in  its  progress 
toward  splendid  futures. 

One  incident  of  the  campaign  was  the  candi 
date's  reply  to  a  list  of  questions,  presumed  to  be 
embarrassing,  asked  him  in  an  open  letter  by  a/ 


176  WOODROW  WILSON 

Progressive  Republican,  Mr.  George  L.  Record. 
Mr.  Record  put  into  careful  form  nineteen 
queries  requiring  Mr.  Wilson  to  declare  himself 
on  such  subjects  as  a  public  service  commission 
with  power  to  fix  rates;  the  physical  valuation  of 
public  service  corporation  properties;  direct 
primaries;  popular  election  of  United  States 
Senators;  ballot  reform;  corrupt  practices  legis 
lation;  employers'  liability  for  workingmen's  in 
juries;  and  finally  his  own  opinion  of  the  Demo 
cratic  bosses — namely,  Smith,  Nugent,  and  Davis. 
With  instant  readiness,  with  audacious  glee, 
Mr.  Wilson  gave  his  answers:  he  accepted  the 
whole  Progressive  Republican  programme  and 
asked  for  more;  no  Republican  could  satisfy  a 
Progressive  Democrat's  appetite  for  reform.  As 
for  Smith,  Nugent,  and  Davis,  he  would  join 
anybody  in  denouncing  them ;  they  differed  from 
Baird,  Kean,  Stokes,  and  Murphy  in  this,  that 
the  latter  "are  in  control  of  the  government  of 
the  state,  while  the  others  are  not,  and  cannot  be 
if  the  present  Democratic  ticket  is  elected"  Mr. 
Wilson  went  farther;  he  asked  himself  a  twen 
tieth  question  which  Mr.  Record  had  been  too 


INTO  POLITICS  177 

polite  to  ask:  What  would  be  his  relations 
with  those  men  if  elected  Governor?  "I  shall 
always  welcome  advice  and  suggestions  from 
any  citizen,  whether  boss,  leader,  Organization 
man,  or  plain  citizen,  but  all  suggestions  and 
advice  will  be  considered  on  their  merits.  I 
should  deem  myself  forever  disgraced  should  I, 
in  even  the  slightest  degree,  cooperate  in  any 
such  system  or  any  such  transactions  as  'the 
boss  system'  describes." 

Election  day  was  November  8th.  On  that 
day  the  people  of  New  Jersey,  for  many  years 
a  Republican  state,  chose  Woodrow  Wilson  for 
Governor  by  a  plurality  of  49,150.  Two  years 
before,  Taft  had  carried  the  state  by  a  plurality 
of  82,000.  Wilson  had  changed  the  political 
mind  of  66,000  out  of  433,000  voters.  You  will 
hunt  hard  to  find  the  like  of  that  in  American 
politics.  At  the  same  ratio,  if  the  new  Democratic 
National  Convention  were  to  nominate  him  for  the 
Presidency,  Wilson  would  transform  Taft's  1908 
plurality  of  1,270,000  —  that  marvelous,  almost 
unparalleled  plurality  —  into  a  Democratic  tri 
umph  by  1,630,000  popular  votes. 


178  WOODROW  WILSON 

On  the  same  day,  the  majority  of  those  Dem 
ocrats  who  took  the  trouble  to  mark  their 
ballots  in  this  particular,  selected  James  E. 
Martine  as  their  choice  for  United  States 
Senator.  The  total  Democratic  vote  for  Sena 
tor  was  only  73,000.  Martine  received  54,000. 
Nobody  voted  for  James  Smith,  Jr. 

James  E.  Martine  was  an  honest  and  faith 
ful  Democrat,  with  radical  views ;  as  genial  and 
good-hearted  a  man  as  ever  breathed  -  -  but 
scarcely  a  man  that  would  have  been  chosen  de 
liberately  for  the  dignities  of  membership  in  the 
august  body  that  sits  in  the  northern  end  of  the 
National  Capitol.  Regularly,  for  years,  he  had 
been  put  up  as  candidate  for  any  old  office  to 
which  there  was  no  hope  of  election.  Once  he  had 
run  for  sheriff;  twice  he  had  run  for  Congress; 
four  times  for  the  assembly;  four  times  for  the 
State  Senate.  Defeat  had  ever  been  his  cheer 
fully  accepted  portion.  It  was  a  well-estab 
lished  rule  that  Martine  was  always  to  run  — 
never  to  reach  anything.  Now,  to  general 
astonishment,  Wilson's  popularity  had  given 
Democrats  a  majority  on  joint  ballot  of  the  two 


INTO  POLITICS  179 

houses  of  the  legislature;  a  successor  was  to  be 
elected  to  United  States  Senator  John  Kean, 
and  Martine  had  been  permitted  to  lead  in  the 
primary ! 

Ten  days  after  the  election  James  Smith,  Jr., 
called  on  Governor-elect  Wilson  at  his  home  in   j 
Princeton.     The   ex-Senator  is  a  gentleman  of/ 
taste,  of  Chesterfieldian  manner  and  delightful^ 
conversation,  and  his  congratulations,  we  may j 
depend     upon     it,     were     gracefully    phrased. 
Equally  graceful  was  his  modest  confession  that 
he  found  his  health  now  greatly  bettered,  and 
his  intimation  that  he  now  indeed  felt  justified 
in  taking  into  serious  consideration  the  idea  of 
asking  reelection  to  the  United  States  Senate. 

Governor-elect  Wilson,  when  he  had  satisfied 
himself  that  he  heard  aright,  expressed  the  very 
great  astonishment  which  he  felt;  he  then  said 
to  Mr.  Smith  that  he  regarded  the  idea  as  im 
possible,  and  he  begged  him  to  abandon  it  forth 
with.  Followed  a  long  conversation,  in  which 
Smith  sought  to  justify  his  political  past,  while 
the  Governor-elect  made  more  and  more  explicit 
his  warning  that  he  would  never  permit  the 


180  WOODROW  WILSON 

election.  The  ex-Senator  turned  the  talk  on 
Martine's  qualifications,  or  lack  of  them  — 
which  Mr.  Wilson  refused  to  discuss.  The  issue 
was  not  Martine,  but  the  party's  faith.  The 
primary  had  elected  Martine,  and  there  was 
nothing  for  the  legislature  to  do  but  ratify  that 
election. 

"The  primary  was  a  joke,"  said  Smith, 

(      "It  was  very  far  from  a  joke,"  rejoined  the 

^Governor-elect.     "But    assume    that    it    was. 

f     Then  the  way  to  save  it  from  being  a  joke  here- 

\    after  is  to  take  it  seriously  now.     It  is  going  to 

be  taken  seriously,  and  there  will  be  no  more 

jokes.     The  question  who  is  to  enjoy  one  term 

in  the  Senate  is  of  small  consequence  compared 

with  the  question  whether  the  people  of  New 

Jersey  are  to  gain  the  right  to  choose  their  own 

Senators  forever." 

Smith's  candidacy  was  now  made  publicly 
known,  and  the  party  sharply  divided,  the  Or 
ganization  declaring  its  purpose  and  its  ability 
to  carry  the  legislature  for  him,  and  the  decent 
rank  and  file  denouncing  the  attempt  to  steal  a 
Senatorship  for  a  discredited  politician  who 


INTO  POLITICS  181 

dared  not  run  in  the  primary.  The  greatest 
eagerness  was  shown  as  to  the  attitude  of 
Governor-elect  Wilson.  He,  however,  refrained, 
for  a  little  while,  from  taking  either  side  pub 
licly,  hoping  his  public  interference  would  not 
be  necessary.  Privately,  he  sent  many  men  of 
influence  to  Smith  to  urge  him  not  to  try  the 
race.  These  measures  availed  nothing. 

As  a  last  effort  to  save  Mr.  Smith  from  the  \ 
humiliation  he  was  determined  should  overtake 
him  if  he  persisted,  Mr.  Wilson  called  on  Mr. 
Smith  by  appointment  at  his  house  in  Newark. 
It  was  in  the  late  afternoon  of  Tuesday,  Decem 
ber  6th.  The  Governor-elect  said  he  had  come  to 
say  that,  although  he  had  as  yet  taken  no  public 
stand,  it  was  his  intention,  unless  Mr.  Smith 
withdrew  from  the  Senatorial  contest,  to  an 
nounce  his  opposition  to  him. 

"Will  you  be  content  in  having  thus  publicly 
announced  your  opposition?  "  asked  the  aspirant. 

"No.  I  shall  actively  oppose  you  with  every 
honorable  means  in  my  power,"  replied  the 
Governor-elect. 

"Does  that  mean  that  you  will  employ  the 


182  WOODROW  WILSON 

state  patronage  against  me?"  inquired  Mr. 
Smith. 

"No,"  answered  Wilson.  "I  should  not  re 
gard  that  as  an  honorable  means.  Besides,  that 
will  not  be  necessary." 

The  Governor-elect  then  laid  down  this  ulti 
matum: 

"Unless  I  hear  from  you,  by  or  before  the 
last  mail  delivery  on  Thursday  night,  that  you 
abandon  this  ambition,  I  shall  announce  my  op 
position  to  you  on  Friday  morning." 

The  last  mail  Thursday  night  brought  no 
message  from  Smith,  and  Mr.  Wilson  by  tele 
graph  released  to  the  morning  newspapers  a 
statement  he  had  prepared  denouncing  the 
Smith  candidacy.  Half  an  hour  later  came  a 
special  delivery  letter  from  Smith  asking  for  a 
few  days'  delay.  The  denunciation  had  gone 
out. 

It  was  a  bitter  fight.  The  Governor  did  not 
wait  for  the  assembling  of  the  legislature;  he 
appeared  before  large  audiences  in  the  chief 
cities  —  and,  making  a  clear  statement  of  the 
case,  asked  the  people  to  see  to  it  that  their  rep- 


INTO  POLITICS  183 

resentatives  voted  right.  Among  the  legisla 
tors  there  was  panic;  none  of  them  had  ever 
heard  of  such  a  thing  as  this  smiling  defiance,  by 
a  mere  novice  in  the  political  field,  of  a  boss  who 
had  ruled  twenty  years.  Not  all  of  them  had 
instant  faith  in  the  outcome.  But  there  never 
was  any  doubt  about  the  result.  As  Governor 
Wilson  afterward  told  the  story,  he  brought  no 
pressure  to  bear  upon  the  wavering  members  of 
the  legislature.  He  merely  told  them  to  follow 
their  consciences,  and  tried  to  assure  them  that 
they  would  suffer  no  harm  if  they  did  so.  He 
said  to  them: 

"Do  not  allow  yourselves  to  be  dismayed. 
You  see  where  the  machine  is  entrenched,  and 
it  looks  like  a  real  fortress.  It  looks  as  if  real 
men  were  inside,  as  if  they  had  real  guns.  Go 
and  touch  it.  It  is  a  house  of  cards.  Those 
are  imitation  generals.  Those  are  playthings 
that  look  like  guns.  Go  and  put  your  shoulder 
against  the  thing  and  it  collapses." 

They   took    heart    and   put  their  shouldei 
against  it,  and  it  collapsed. 

On  January  28th  the  New  Jersey  Legislature 


184  WOODROW  WILSON 

elected  James  E.  Martine  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  giving  him  forty  votes.  The  Organiza 
tion  mustered  four  for  Smith. 

Such  is  the  tale  of  Woodrow  Wilson's  "in 
gratitude." 

The  most  moderate  and  charitable  account  of 
the  matter  that  any  way  reaches  its  pith  is  that 
which  Wilson  himself  once  gave: 

"They  did  not  believe  that  I  meant  what  I 
said,  and  I  did  believe  that  they  meant  what 
they  said."  In  their  sophistication,  they  had 
gold-bricked  somebody,  certainly,  but  not  the 
schoolmaster  nor  the  people  of  New  Jersey. 
They  had  digged  a  pit  and  fallen  into  the  midst 
of  it  themselves.  For  the  intended  victim  to 
escape  was,  of  course,  rank  ingratitude! 


CHAPTER  XI 

ONE  YEAR  OF  A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR 

THE  platform  upon  which  Governor  Wil 
son  had  been  elected  had  promised  four 
principal  things  —  which  probably  not 
a  man  in  the  convention  that  adopted  it  ex 
pected  to  see  realized:  the  direct  primary,  a  cor-\ 
rupt  practices   election   law,  a  public  service  1 
commission  with  power  to  fix  rates,  and  an  em-  / 
ployers'  liability  and  workingmen's  compensation  j 
law.     The  Governor's  inaugural  address — a  re 
markable  document,  vibrant  with  the  spirit  and 
the  consciousness  of  a  new  age,  new  alike  in  poli 
tics  and  in  the  very  elements  of  social  and  indus 
trial  life — made  it  clear  that  he  regarded  the  plat 
form  promises  as  binding.     He  spoke  of  them, 
and  of  a  dozen  kindred  steps  of  enlightened  re 
form,  with  the  blithe  confidence  of  a  captain  who 
gives  the  word  of  advance  to  an  assured  and 
easy  victory: 

185 


186  WOODROW  WILSON 

It  is  not  the  foolish  ardor  of  too  sanguine  or  too  radical 
reform  that  I  urge  upon  you,  but  merely  the  tasks  t*.  it 
are  evident  and  pressing,  the  things  we  have  knowledge 
and  guidance  enough  to  do;  and  to  do  with  confidence  and 
energy.  I  merely  point  out  the  present  business  of  prog 
ress  and  serviceable  government,  the  next  stage  on  the 
journey  of  duty.  The  path  is  as  inviting  as  it  is  plain. 
Shall  we  hesitate  to  tread  it?  I  look  forward  with  genuine 
pleasure  to  the  prospect  of  being  your  comrade  upon  it. 

The  new  Governor  of  New  Jersey  had  little 
respect  for  the  doctrine  of  "the  three  coordinate 
branches,  as  it  had  been  pedantically  exagger 
ated  in  practice."  His  study  of  the  English 
parliamentary  system  had  long  ago  directed  his 
attention  to  the  advantages  of  having  the  exec 
utive  closely  associated  in  counsel  with  the  leg 
islature.  His  investigation  of  the  American 
congressional  system  had  confirmed  him  in  the 
opinion  that  the  attempt  to  maintain  in  pedantic 
precision  the  classic  theory  of  separation,  tended 
to  divide  and  destroy  responsibility,  render 
official  leadership  impossible,  and  make  a  mud 
dle  where  ought  to  be  a  clear-headed,  decisive 
government.  How  often  an  executive  of  one 
party  and  a  legislature  of  another  completely 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         187 

waste  a  term  of  office,  unable  to  do  anything  but 
play  politics !  It  ought  to  be  impossible  to  have 
an  executive  administration  trying  to  carry  on 
the  government  without  the  backing  of  a  legis 
lature  of  the  same  political  complexion.  It 
ought  to  be  impossible  to  have  a  legislature  in 
which  the  executive  administration  cannot  sug 
gest  legislation. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  go  farther  into  Mr. 
Wilson's  ideas  of  responsible  government  (he 
believes  that  the  American  plan  is  capable  of 
natural  improvement),  except  to  remark  that  he 
attributes  the  up-growth  of  the  boss  system, 
with  its  extra-legal,  extra-official  leaders,  largely 
to  the  absence  of  constitutional  provision  for 
official  leaders,  and  to  add  that  he  had  deter 
mined  to  be,  as  Governor,  an  official  leader  — 
the  chief  of  his  party  in  the  state,  the  party  put 
into  power  by  an  overwhelming  vote  of  the 
people  —  the  leader,  therefore,  responsible  not 
only  for  administering  the  routine  business  of 
the  Governor's  office,  but  for  seeing  that  the 
policies  endorsed  in  the  party  platform  on  which 
he  had  been  elected  were  embodied  in  legis- 


188  WOODROW  WILSON 

lation.  During  the  campaign  he  had  explicitly 
requested  that  no  man  vote  for  him  who  did  not 
want  him  to  be  the  party  leader.  He  had  warned 
1 — '  the  electorate  of  the  state  that  if  elected  he 
meant  to  be  an  "unconstitutional  Governor," 
as  the  constitution  was  instantly  interpreted  to 
forbid  his  taking  part  in  legislation.  And  the 
electorate  had  given  him  a  majority  of  fifty 
thousand. 

It  was  not  idly,  therefore,  that  the  Governor's 
inaugural  bugle-call  summoning  the  legislators 
to  enter  upon  the  path  of  progress  ended  with 
the  jubilant  note  of  pleasure  at  the  prospect  of 
being  their  "comrade"  upon  it. 

What  was  the  situation  that  confronted  this 
hopeful  Governor? 

His  party  had  a  majority  on  joint  ballot  of  the 
legislature;  but  the  Senate,  without  whose  con 
currence  no  bill  could  become  law,  stood  Repub 
lican  12  to  9.  Democrats  were  in  a  majority  of 
42  to  18  in  the  Assembly,  but  many  of  the  party's 
representatives  were  connected  with  the  old 
Organization  and  resentful  of  the  college  pres 
ident's  advent  into  politics.  The  Governor's 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         189 

triumph  in  seating  Mr.  Martine  in  the  United 
States  Senate  over  ex-Senator  Smith's  candi 
dacy  had  not  ended  the  war  between  him  and  the 
old  Organization.  It  had  given  him  prestige, 
it  had  heartened  the  friends  of  good  govern 
ment;  but  it  had  even  more  savagely  embittered 
the  old  leaders  and  engendered  sullenness  among 
their  still  faithful  followers.  "We  gave  him  the 
Senatorship,"  they  said  among  themselves,  "but 
that  is  the  end;  we've  done  enough;  if  he  asks 
for  more,  he'll  find  out  wrho  is  running  the  state 
of  New  Jersey."  The  state  of  New  Jersey  had/ 
been  "run"  for  years  by  the  allied  corporation] 
interests.  They  might  put  up  with  the  loss  of 
a  Senator,  but  legislation  that  proposed  to  fas 
ten  a  workingmen's  compensation  liability  upon 
them;  put  them,  their  books,  and  the  rates  they 
charged,  under  the  control  of  the  people;  and 
that,  above  all,  proposed  to  destroy  the  boss 
system,  through  which  they  held  their  dom 
ination  of  the  State  House  —  such  things  simply 
could  not  and  should  not  be.  If  anywhere  in 
the  Union  the  beautiful  theories  of  representa 
tive  government  met  the  ugly  realities  of  actual 


190  WOODROW  WILSON 

politics,  they  met  them  in  the  corporation-ruled 
state  of  New  Jersey.  What  mattered  the 
wishes  of  a  majority  of  fifty  thousand  voters  to  a 
legislature  two  thirds  of  whose  members  were 
under  obligations  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  or 
ganizations  they  were  asked  to  destroy? 

The  way  in  which  a  situation  so  discouraging 
was  forced  to  yield  the  surprising  results  it  did 
yield  is  full  of  promise  to  men  of  hope. 

Governor  Wilson  relied  from  the  start  on  the 
merits  of  the  bills,  on  public  sentiment  in  favor 
of  them,  and  on  his  power  to  force  the  open  dis 
cussion  of  them.     He  would  not  permit  them  to 
be  done  for  in  secret  conferences ;  there  should  be 
public  debate;  he  would  make  his  own  argu 
ments  for  the  bills  so  that  all  the  state  should 
hear  him,  and  he  would  compel  the  opponents 
to  give  the  reasons  of  their  opposition  publicly. 
The  doors  of  his  office  stood  always  open,  and 
I    he  encouraged  Senators   and  Assemblymen   to 
S  make  it  a  habit  to  come  to  see  him  and  talk 
I    things    over  —  familiarly,    but   never   secretly. 
\  Those  who  did  not  come,  he  sent  for,  on  one 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         191 

pretext  or  another,  and  the  matter  of  the  bills 
naturally  came  up.  He  told  them  that  he  had 
no  patronage  to  dispose  of,  no  promises  to  make, 
and  no  warnings  to  issue,  but  he  should  like  to 
have  them  consider  the  bills  on  their  merits,  and 
let  him  know  where  they  stood. 

Heretofore  Republican  Governors  had  con 
sulted  Republican  members,  and  Democratic 
Governors  had  consulted  Democratic  members.  <> 
Wilson  consulted  members  of  both  parties.  He  , 
talked  to  them  all  alike  of  the  good  of  the  com 
monwealth;  to  Democrats  he  added  arguments 
based  on  the  platform  promises.  He  made  it 
clear  that  he  considered  himself  chosen  party 
leader,  but  he  gave  no  orders  —  he  would  not  be 
a  boss;  though  he  might  be  much  bold  to  enjoin, 
yet  he  rather  besought,  with  argument,  with 
appeals  to  patriotism,  state  pride  and  party 
loyalty,  with  the  simple,  cheerful  assumption 
that  they  were  all  agreed  on  essentials  (hard 
they  found  it  to  deny  that  smiling  assumption!) 
and  need  discuss  only  incidental  details.  The 
nearest  that  he  ever  came  to  a  threat  was  in  the 
suggestion  to  a  few  stubborn  opponents  that 


192  WOODROW  WILSON 

they  debate  the  question  with  him  in  public  in 
their  own  districts.  From  time  to  time  the 
Governor  issued  public  statements  regarding 
his  measures;  in  one  he  expressed  the  fear  that 
he  might  have  to  name  the  men  who  were  pre 
paring  to  be  faithless  to  the  platform  promises 
and  to  betray  the  people.  He  never  had  to  do 
this;  when  it  came  to  a  vote,  as  we  shall  see, 
there  was  nobody  to  name  worth  naming. 

On  the  opening  of  the  legislature,  January 
10,  1911,  it  was  with  difficulty  that  sponsors 
could  be  found  to  introduce  the  Governor's 
bills.  Few  believed  that  a  single  one  of  them 
could  be  forced  through  before  the  end  of  the 
session.  "Very  well,  then,  we  shall  have  to 
have  a  special  session  to  do  it,"  was  Governor 
Wilson's  undismayed  reply.  "However,  let  us 
hope  that  won't  be  necessary." 

First  in  order  came  up  the  Primary  Elections 
Bill,  to  which  an  Assemblyman  from  Monmouth 
County  had  allowed  his  name  to  be  given:  the 
Geran  Bill. 

This  revolutionary  piece  of  legislation  con- 


3  3 


c   a 


5  a 


•'-  •' 


3  s 
z" 

I 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         193 

templated  the  turning  over  of  both,  or  all, 
political  organizations  to  the  people;  conven 
tions,  so  easily  manipulated  by  nominating 
bosses,  were  done  away  with.  All  candidates 
for  office  from  that  of  constable  to  President  ^ 
were  to  be  nominated  directly  by  ballot  of  the 
people;  all  party  officers,  committeemen,  dele 
gates  tcfnational  conventions,  and  thejike,  were 
to  be  so  elected  by  popular  ballot,  and  the 
primary  elections  at  which  all  this  was  to  be 
done  were  to  be  conducted  by  the  state  under 
strict  laws,  the  election  officers  being  chosen 
from  citizens  who  have  passed  special  civil 
service  examinations.  The  respective  party 
platforms  were  to  be  written  by  the  party's 
candidates  for  the  legislature,  meeting  together 
with  the  state  committee  -  -  the  men  who,  if 
elected,  were  themselves  to  carry  out  the  plat 
form  promises. 

To  those  who  understand  the  significance  of 
the  great  movement  for  the  resumption  by  the 
people  of  the  direct  powers  of  government,  it 
would  have  been  sufficiently  astonishing  that  a 
Governor  of  a  state  like  New  Jersey  should  have 


194  WOODROW  WILSON 

thought  it  worth  while  to  make  to  his  legislature 
such  an  audacious  proposal  as  the  direct  pri 
mary,  with  popular  selection  of    United  States 
Senators,  popular  nomination    of    Presidential 
candidates,  and  popular  choice  of  party  officers. 
This  meant  the  killing  of  the  bosses;  it  meant  the 
/    extinction    of   corporation-controlled    organiza 
tions;  it  meant  everything  that  New  Jersey  had 
1     never  had  and  that  the  professional  politicians 
V    and  the  big  business  interests  could  never  permit 
to  have. 

No  wonder  there  was  a  battle  royal! 
f  James  R.  Nugent  was  in  active  direction  of 
\Jhe  opposition.  Ex-Senator  Smith's  relation, 
he  urged  the  "ingrate"  argument;  Wilson  knew 
no  honor  and  would  knife  the  men  who  assisted 
him;  state  chairman,  he  was  officially  in  com 
mand  of  the  party  Organization,  and  could 
promise  and  threaten  with  the  prestige  of  fifteen 
long  years  of  almost  unopposed  party  suprem 
acy  against  this  new  Governor's  bare  month  of 
troubled  experience. 

Nugent  easily  arranged  a  coalition  with  the 
Republicans.     Their  Organization  was  equally 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         195 

threatened,  and  far  greater  than  the  fall  of  the 
minority  party  bosses  would  be  that  of  the  Re 
publican  "Board  of  Guardians"  who  had  for 
years  "bossed"  the  majority  party  in  the  state. 
If  the  Republican  majority  still  in  control  of 
the  Senate  stood  pat,  the  Geran  Bill  would  fail 
there;  but  Nugent  wanted  more:  he  wanted  the 
Democratic  lower  chamber  to  repudiate  the 
Governor's  plan.  He  was  so  confident  that  this 
could  be  managed  that  he  arranged  for  a  con 
ference  on  the  bill  as  a  preliminary  test. 

It  was  a  fatal  error. 

The  Governor  heard  of  the  conference,  and 
genially  suggested  that  he  be  invited.  It  was 
unprecedented  for  a  Governor  to  attend  a  legis 
lative  caucus,  but  it  would  have  been  awkward 
to  have  declined  to  invite  him  if  he  wanted  to 
come.  So  he  went. 

The  gathering  was  in  the  Supreme  Court 
room,  on  the  second  floor  of  the  State  House. 
One  Assemblyman,  Martin,  challenged  the 
Governor's  intervention;  he  had  no  constitu 
tional  right  to  interfere  in  legislation;  had  it  not 
been  written  by  them  of  old  time  that  the  ex- 


196  WOODROW  WILSON 

ecutive  and  legislative  branches  must  be  kept 
sacredly  apart?  The  Governor  replied  by  draw 
ing  from  his  pocket  the  Legislative  Manual  and 
reading  a  clause  of  the  constitution  which  directed 
the  Governor  of  New  Jersey  to  communicate 
with  the  legislature  at  such  times  as  he  might 
deem  necessary,  and  to  recommend  such  meas 
ures  as  he  might  deem  expedient.  He  was  there, 
he  continued,  in  pursuance  of  a  constitutional 
duty,  to  recommend  a  measure  of  that  character. 
In  noble  fashion  did  he  recommend  it.  That 
conference  lasted  four  and  a  half  hours;  for 
three  hours  of  it  Mr.  Wilson  was  on  his  feet, 
first  expounding  the  bill,  clause  by  clause; 
answering  all  queries  and  replying  to  all  objec 
tions  out  of  a  knowledge  not  only  of  the  ex 
perience  of  other  states  but  of  the  practical 
workings  of  politics,  that  greatly  surprised  his 
audience.  One  by  one  he  met  and  silenced  all 
critics.  Then,  looking  about  upon  them,  he 
began  what  will  always  remain  one  of  the  notable 
speeches  of  his  career,  a  speech  which  no  man 
who  was  present  will  ever  forget.  They  were 
Democrats,  and  he  spoke  to  them  as  such.  This 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         197 

he  told  them,  was  no  attempt  to  destroy  the 
party;  it  was  a  plan  to  revitalize  it  and  arm  it 
for  the  war  to  which  the  swelling  voice  of  a 
people  called  it  in  an  hour  of  palpitant  expec-  /• 
tancy.     With   an   onrush   of   words   wiiite-hot  ] 
with   speed   and   suppressed   emotion,   he   dis-  ( 
played  before  them  the  higher  view  of  political 
duty,  and  expanded  the  ground  of  his  hope  for 
the  future  of  the  Democratic  party  as  a  servant  j 
of  the  people. 

One  repeats  only  what  the  attendants  at  this 
remarkable  meeting  unite  in  testifying  when  he  | 
says  that  they  came  downstairs  not  knowing 
whether  more  amazed  by  the  force  of  logic  that 
had  fairly  won  them  over,  or  moved  by  the  in 
spiring  appeal  to  wrhich  they  had  listened  The 
conference,  called  to  refuse  the  Geran  Bill,  voted 
to  make  it  a  party  measure. 

A  Republican  caucus  was  proposed  to  insure 
party  unanimity  against  the  bill,  but  so  many 
Republican  members  refused  in  advance  to  be 
bound,  that  the  plan  was  abandoned.  The 
opposition  had  hoped  that  the  Senate  committee 
on  elections  would  refuse  to  report  the  bill  out, 


198  WOODROW  WILSON 

but  to  this  Senator  Bradley,  Republican,  chair 
man  of  the  committee,  declined  to  be  a  party. 
Senator  Bradley  had  for  several  sessions  been 
chairman  of  the  joint  committee  on  appropri 
ations,  and  though  the  Democrats  now  controlled 
this  committee,  Governor  Wilson  had  asked  that 
Mr.  Bradley,  because  of  his  long  experience,  be 
retained  in  its  chairmanship.  Doubtless  this 
had  nothing  to  do  with  Mr.  Bradley's  refusal  to 
bury  the  Geran  Bill.  Doubtless  the  straight 
forward  Governor  had  had  no  thought  of  reci 
procity.  But  the  circumstance  is  interesting. 

The  Senate  elections  committee  did  hold  .a 
public  hearing,  aranged  by  the  opposition.  It 
was  a  melancholy  affair,  from  their  standpoint; 
the  speakers  who  were  to  demolish  the  bill  never 
came,  while  a  battery  of  able,  and  by  now  en 
thusiastic,  cannoneers  riddled  the  pretensions 
of  the  enemy.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  scathing 
sarcasm  drawled  from  the  scornful  lips  of 
Joseph  Noonan,  whose  native  Irish  wit  has  not 
been  spoiled  by  his  Oxford  education,  was  not 
stenographically  reported.  Traditions  of  its  ef 
fectiveness  still  hang  about  that  Senate  chamber. 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         199 

Among  the  expected  lights  who  failed  to  come 
and  scintillate  for  the  Senate  committee  and  the 
public  was  Mr.  John  William  Griggs,  Mc- 
Kinley's  Attorney-General,  and  Governor  of  the 
state  during  the  palmiest  days  of  unrebuked 
misrule.  Mr.  Griggs's  part  in  the  world  to-day 
is  to  bewail,  with  a  heart  of  infinite  sorrow,  the 
tendency  of  a  lawless  generation  to  depart  from 
the  ancient  landmarks  of  established  order 
recommended  by  the  prescription  of  immemorial 
usage,  and  certified  by  the  sanction  of  many 
years  of  Republican  prosperity.  Governor  Wil 
son  informed  the  Senators  that  if  Mr.  Griggs 
appeared,  he  would  come  himself  and  make  a 
few  remarks  suggested  by  the  former  Attorney- 
General's  speech.  It  would  have  been  a  great 
debate  had  it  ever  come  off.  The  Governor 
waited  in  his  office,  but  Mr.  Griggs  never  came. 
The  total  of  the  opposition  was  represented  by 
James  Smith,  Jr's.,  private  secretary,  who,  after 
some  desultory  vaporings,  sent  word  to  his  chief 
that  open  opposition  to  the  Geran  Bill  was  futile. 

So  now  was  secret  opposition.  Nugent  still 
hung  about  Trenton.  One  day  he  went  into 


200  WOODROW  WILSON 

the  Governor's  office,  at  the  Governor's  request, 
to  "talk  things  over." 

Nugent  very  quickly  lost  his  temper. 

"I  know  you  think  you've  got  the  votes,"  he 
exclaimed.  "I  don't  know  how  you  got  them." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  queried  the  Governor, 
sharply. 

"It's  the  talk  of  the  State  House  that  you  got 
them  by  patronage." 

"Good  afternoon,  Mr.  Nugent,"  said  Gov 
ernor  Wilson,  pointing  to  the  door. 

"You're  no  gentleman,"  shouted  the  dis 
comfited  boss. 

"You're  no  judge,"  replied  Mr.  Wilson,  his 
finger  continuing  to  indicate  the  exit. 

Let  us  finish  with  a  disagreeable  subject  of 
some  slight  interest  in  a  picture  of  Jersey  pol 
itics.  Nugent  crept  away.  Six  months  later 
he  came  again  into  the  prominence  of  his  kind. 
Still  state  chairman,  he  was  giving  a  dinner  to  a 
small  but  convivial  party  at  "Scotty's,"  a 
restaurant  at  Avon,  on  the  Jersey  coast.  A 
party  of  officers  of  the  New  Jersey  National 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         201 

Guard  then  in  camp  at  Sea  Girt,  near  by,  was 
seated  at  an  adjoining  table. 

Nugent  sent  wine  to  the  officers'  table  and 
asked  them  to  join  his  own  party  in  a  toast. 
The  diners  at  both  tables  arose.  "I  give  you," 
cried  Nugent,  "the  Governor  of  the  State  of 
New  Jersey"  —  all  glasses  were  raised;  Nugent 
finished  —  "a  liar  and  an  ingrate!" 

The  diners  stood  a  moment  stupefied.  "Do 
I  drink  alone?"  shouted  the  host. 

He  did  drink  alone.  The  glasses  were  set 
down  untouched;  some  of  the  officers  indig 
nantly  threw  out  their  wine  on  the  floor.  Then 
all  dispersed,  and  Nugent  was  left  alone.  ^ 

\  The  following  day  a  majority  of  the  members  \ 
of  the  state  committee  signed  a  call  for  a  meet 
ing  to  elect  a  new  chairman.  The  meeting 
was  held  a  few  days  later  at  the  Coleman 
House,  Asbury  Park.  A  little  strong-arm  work 
was  indulged  in,  in  Nugent's  behalf,  by  a 
gang  headed  by  Charlie  Bell,  a  wine  tout, 
but  the  Newark  man  was  duly  deposed,  and  a 
successor  elected  in  the  person  of  Edward  W. 
Grosscup,  a  member  of  the  Organization  who 


202  WOODROW  WILSON 

had  come  to  be  a  supporter  and  an  admirer  of 
the  Governor. 


The  Geran  Bill  came  to  its  passage  in  the 
/  Assembly  and  went  through  with  one  third  more 
/  votes  than  it  needed.  The  Republican  Senate 

accepted  and  passed  it  without  a  struggle. 
\         The   whole   legislative  programme  followed. 
\  Jo-day,  Jersey  has  the  most  advanced  and  best 
/working  primary  election  law  in  the  Union.     It 
/has  a  corrupt  practices  law  of  the  severest  kind. 
/  Betting  on  elections  is  forbidden.     Treating  by 
candidates    is    forbidden.     All    campaign    ex 
penses  must  be  published;  corporations  may  not 
\  contribute;  the  maximum  amount  allowed  to  be 
Nspent  by  candidates  for  any  office  is  fixed  by 
law. 

New  Jersey  to-day  has  a  public  utilities  com 
mission  with  power  to  appraise  property,  fix 
rates,  forbid  discriminations,  regulate  finances, 
control  all  sales,  mortgages,  and  leases  in  the 
case  of  all  railroads,  steam  and  electric,  in  the 
case  of  express  companies,  of  canal,  subway,  pipe 
line,  gas,  electric  light,  heat,  power,  water,  oil, 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         203 

sewer,  telegraph,  telephone  companies,  systems) 
plants,  or  equipments  for  public  use.  This  com 
mission's  orders  as  to  rates  go  into  effect  im 
mediately  or,  if  they  are  cuts,  at  the  end  of 
twenty  days'  notice.  To-day,  New  Jersey  has 
an  employers'  liability  law  which  gives  an  in 
jured  employee  immediate  automatic  compen 
sation  paid  by  the  employer.  The  working- 
man,  may,  however,  sue  for  damages,  if  he  pre 
fers  to  take  his  chances  before  a  jury.  The  state 
has  to-day  a  provision  for  the  adoption  by  such 
cities  and  towns  as  may  desire  it,  of  the  com 
mission  form  of  government  on  the  Des  Moines 
plan,  with  the  initiative  and  referendum  and  re 
call.  Under  this  law,  Trenton,  the  capital,  and 
eight  other  Jersey  cities  and  towns  are  trying 
scientific  municipal  government.  Governor  Wil 
son  has  spoken  in  many  places  in  advocacy  of 
the  plan. 

To  this  extraordinary  record  of  progressive 
legislation  must  be  added  an  intelligent  statute 
regulating  the  cold  storage  of  food;  legislation 
establishing  the  indeterminate  sentence  in  place 
of  the  old  discredited  fixed  sentence;  and  the 


204  WOODROW  WILSON 

complete   reorganization   of  the  public   school 
system. 

J     It  is  worthy  of  special  remark  that  the  achieve 
ment  of  these  surprising  results  over  and  against 
its  original  opposition  left  the  legislature,  never 
theless,  in   a  very  friendly   attitude   of   mind 
toward  the  Governor.     He  earned  their  respect, 
and  he  won,  to  boot,  the  hearty  good-will  of 
most  of  the  legislators.     At  first  an  atmosphere 
of  diffidence  hung  over  the  executive  anterooms ; 
visitors  were  not  sure  how  they  would  be  treated. 
But  they  soon  found  it  a  delight  to  visit  the 
Governor's  office,  and  began  to  think  up  ex 
cuses  for  a  look  in.     The  spare  gray  man  with 
S  the  long  jaw  had  a  mighty  taking  way  about 
/him;  there  was  always  a  ready  smile  and  often 
/  a  lively  story,  and  you  seldom  failed  to  go  away 
V^with  a  glow  around  your  heart. 

The  Senators  found  him  out  in  due  course  of 
the  session  one  night  at  a  little  dinner  given  him 
and  them  by  the  Adjutant-General,  Mr.  Sadler, 
at  the  Country  Club.  There  were  some  darky 
music-makers  on  hand,  and  presently  the  high 
tenor  voice  that  had  led  two  college  glee-clubs 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR          205 

was  caroling  in  darky  dialect,  and  before  long 
(it  was  in  the  confidential  privacy  of  a  group  of 
sympathetic  Senators)  the  rather  lengthy  legs 
and  other  members  of  a  Governor  were  engaged 
in  a  duet  Cakewalk  with  one  of  the  older  Senators. 
Nobody  knows  how  many  votes  for  progressive 
legislation  were  won  that  night. 

A  very  practical  Understanding  of  human 
nature  was,  from  the  beginning,  displayed  in  the 
gubernatorial  dealings  with  legislators  —  per 
haps  not  a  little  of  it  due  to  the  keen  political 
sagacity  of  the  Governor's  secretary,  Joseph  P. 
Tumulty,  one  of  the  bright  young  men  of  the 
state,  experienced  beyond  his  years  in  the  ways, 
moods,  and  foibles  of  politicians  in  general  and 
legislators  in  particular.  But  Mr.  Wilson  is 
himself  the  most  human  of  men.  He  is  very 
positive,  he  can  be  very  indignant,  he  takes  the 
high  ground  for  himself;  but  he  is  not  vindictive, 
and  he  knows  how  to  make  allowances. 

No  retaliation  was  ever  visited  upon  adver 
saries  of  the  Governor.  Assemblyman  Martin 
of  Hudson  County,  for  instance,  was  prominent 
in  the  fight  against  Martine;  and  he  was  a  leader 


206  WOODROW  WILSON 

in  opposition  to  the  Geran  Elections  Bill,  his 
opposition  being  doubtless  sincerely  based  on 
his  belief  that  it  would  destroy  the  party  or 
ganization.  Martin  was  much  interested  in  a 
bridge  bill  affecting  Hoboken  and  the  north  end 
of  his  county.  As  the  time  drew  near  for  action 
upon  the  bridge  bill,  he  grew  very  uneasy  and 
was  observed  to  be  much  in  the  vicinage  of  the 
Governor's  room,  inquiring  of  all  and  sundry 
who  were  in  communication  with  the  Executive 
whether  they  thought  he  would  let  it  go  through. 
It  was  difficult  to  persuade  a  man  used  to  the 
customs  of  the  old  days  that  there  was  a  new 
kind  of  politician  in  the  Governor's  chair,  a 
politician  who  dealt  with  proposed  legislation  on 
its  merits  and  not  in  the  harboring  of  vindic- 
tiveness  nor  the  remembrance  of  promised  re 
ward.  Mr.  Martin's  bridge  bill  was  a  just  and 
desirable  measure,  and  he  got  it.  When  the 
fight  for  reform  in  the  educational  department 
came  on,  Martin  was  in  the  front  rank  in  support 
of  the  Governor's  proposals. 

Ex-Senator  Smith,  the  notorious  James,  Jr., 
now  Mr.  Wilson's  bitter  enemy,  owns  a  great 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         207 

deal  of  real  estate  in  Newark.  His  relative  and 
chief  lieutenant,  James  R.  Nugent,  controls  the 
city  so  absolutely  that  a  laborer  can't  get  a  job 
on  the  street  without  his  consent.  However, 
there  are  some  things  which  a  New  Jersey  city 
council  has  to  ask  the  legislature  for  permission 
to  do.  This  session;  there  was  to  come  up  at 
Trenton  a  bill  allowing  the  Newark  common 
council  in  its  discretion  to  widen  certain  streets. 
The  improvement  would  enhance  the  value  of 
realty  owned  by  Smith.  It  would  have  been 
the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  a  vindictive 
Governor  to  have  vetoed  the  bill,  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  a  job,  and  to  have  won  applause  for 
his  act,  while  striking  a  telling  blow  at  Smith  and 
Nugent.  But,  considering  the  case  on  its  merits, 
Governor  Wilson  could  conclude  only  that  it  au 
thorized  a  real  improvement,  irrespective  of  its  ef 
fect  on  the  Smith  property.  He  signed  the  bill. 
"Mr.  Smith  and  the  Governor  do  not  always 
see  precisely  eye  to  eye,"  was  his  remark,  as  he 
laid  down  the  pen,  "but  that  circumstance  con 
stitutes  no  reason  why  Mr.  Smith  should  be 
deprived  of  any  of  his  rights  as  a  citizen," 


.208  WOODROW  WILSON 

There  was  one  case,  however,  in  which  Mr. 
Wilson  violated,  unblushingly,  his  declaration 
that  he  had  no  rewards  for  those  who  supported 
nor  punishment  for  those  who  opposed  his  meas 
ures.  Assemblyman  Allan  B.  Walsh,  of  Mercer 
County,  was  a  mechanic  employed  by  the  Roe- 
bling  Company.  This  corporation,  which  paid 
Walsh  something  like  three  dollars  a  day  for  his 
labor  in  its  shops,  naturally  felt  that  this  sum 
included  what  service  he  could  render  in  his 
capacity  as  a  legislator.  When  the  election  of 
United  States  Senator  came  up  he  was  instructed 
to  vote  for  Smith.  He  went  to  the  Governor 
and  told  him  how  the  case  stood  with  him.  "I 
quite  understand,"  said  the  Governor,  "and  I 
don't  want  to  advise  you  what  to  do.  I  am  not 
the  man  to  ask  you  to  imperil  your  family's 
living.  Whatever  you  conclude  to  do,  I  shan't 
hold  it  against  you." 

Something  in  the  common  sense  and  human 
kindliness  of  Wilson's  attitude  so  touched  Walsh, 
not  heretofore  known  as  a  hero,  that  he  went  to 
,the  caucus  and  voted  for  Martine.  His  work 
cut  till  he  could  make  only  $10  a  week. 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         209 

When  the  battle  was  joined  on  the  Wilson  legis 
lative  programme,  his  employers  warned  him  to 
vote  against  it.  He  voted  for  it  —  Walsh,  you 
see,  had  a  man  in  him  —  and  was  discharged. 
The  Governor  heard  of  that  —  and  those  who 
happened  to  be  in  the  State  House  that  day 
heard  language  flow  in  a  vigor  drawn  from  re 
sources  not  commonly  tapped  by  Presbyterian 
elders.  Walsh  was  a  poor  man  with  a  family, 
whose  livelihood  had  been  taken  away  from  him 
because  he  voted  according  to  his  conscience. 
"Something  must  be  done  for  Walsh;  we  can't 
see  him  suffer  like  this,"  said  Mr.  Wilson.  He 
was  reminded  of  his  declaration  that  he  would 
neither  punish  nor  reward.  "No  matter  what 
I  said!"  he  exclaimed.  "This  is  a  good  time 
to  be  inconsistent.  We'll  find  a  place  for  Walsh. " 

So  it  is  a  true  charge  that  the  present  clerk 
of  the  Mercer  County  tax  board  (though  indeed 
he  is  a  competent  man)  owes  his  position  to  the 
fact  that  he  voted  for  Wilson  measures  in  the 
legislature. 

Mr.  Wilson's  appointments  were  for  the  most 
part  wise  and  happy  —  some  of  them  remark- 


210  WOODROW  WILSON 

I  ably  so.     One  of  the  best,  in  its  results,  was  that 
'  of  Samuel  Kalish  to  the  Supreme  Court  bench. 
Kalish  is  a  Jew,  and  he  happened  to  be  Nugent's 
personal  counsel,  but  neither  of  these  circum 
stances  closed  the  Governor's  eyes  to  the  fact 
S  that    he    was    able,    honorable,    vigorous,    and 
\   peculiarly  fitted  for  such  work  as  lay  before  the 
1  New    Jersey    Supreme    Court.     It    is    Justice 
^Kalish,  now  sitting  in  the  Atlantic  County  Cir 
cuit,  who  is  cleaning  up  Atlantic  City;  it  was  he 
who,  finding  justice  made  a  joke  of  in  Atlantic 
County  by  juries  picked  by  the  corrupt  sheriff, 
turned  to  the  early  common  law  and  appointed 
"elisors"  to  select  jurymen.     A  grand  jury  thus 
obtained  indicted  the  sheriff,  and  the  work  of 
bringing  the  big  resort  under  subjection  to  law 
goes  thrivingly  on.     Justice  Swayze,  who  was 
prominently  mentioned  for  a  place  on  the  United 
States  Supreme  bench,  has  resorted  to  Justice 
Kalish's    "elisors"    in     dealing    with    corrupt 
political  conditions  in  Hudson  County. 

New  Jersey  elects  its  Assembly  anew  each 
year.     In  the  autumn  of  1911  Governor  Wilson 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         211 

went  before  the  people  to  ask  for  the  return  of 
men  pledged  to  sustain  the  accomplished  leg 
islation  and  to  support  what  further  progressive 
measures  should  come  up.  For  the  first  time,  a 
primary  was  held  under  the  Geran  law.  The 
Smith-Nugent  influence  was  frantically  exerted 
everywhere  to  nominate  an ti- Wilson  men.  It 
failed,  failed  utterly,  everywhere  except  in  Essex 
County  -  -  the  home  of  the  ex-Senator  and  his 
lieutenant.  For  the  first  time  a  Geran  law  con 
vention  was  held.  The  Wilson  men  controled 
it.  A  sound  platform  was  adopted.  In  Essex, 
the  Smith-Nugent  machine  won  the  primary, 
nominating  a  ticket  expressly  chosen  in  antag 
onism  to  the  Governor. 

In  the  campaign  that  followed,  Governor 
Wilson  visited  every  county  in  the  state  except 
Essex.  He  canceled  his  engagement  for  that 
county,  refusing  to  ask  support  for  the  Smith 
ticket. 

The  result  of  the  election  has  been  twisted  by 
opponents  of  Mr.  Wilson  into  a  defeat  for  him. 
It  was,  in  fact,  a  signal  victory  —  a  striking 
endorsement.  In  all  the  state  outside  of  Essex, 


WOODROW  WILSON 

in  the  counties,  that  is,  where  he  asked  support 
for  Democratic  candidates  for  the  Assembly, 
their  majorities  aggregated  857  votes  more  than 
they  did  the  previous  year,  when  the  state  was 
ablate  with  the  excitement  of  a  gubernatorial 
campaign.  In  Essex,  which  he  refused  to  visit, 
in  Essex,  where  the  Democratic  candidates  were 
pledged  anti-Wilson  men,  the  Democratic  vote 
fell  off  12,000  and  the  Republicans  won. 

It  is  clear  enough,  certainly,  whether  this  is 
repudiation  or  endorsement.     What  happened 
was  simply  this:  Smith  and  Nugent,  who,  like 
minority  party  bosses  generally,  expect  to  re 
ceive  help  occasionally  from  the  opposite  party 
and  more  frequently  to  give  it,  turned  a  very 
common  trick.     They  nominated  the  weakest  \ 
possible  ticket  and  then  left  it  to  the  fate  they 
expected  it  to  meet.     They  gave  the  legislature  / 
back  to  the  Republicans,  for  the  sake  of  being  - 
able  to   raise  the  cry  that  the  state  had  repu 
diated  Wrilson.      Few  were  deceived  by  such  a 
play. 

The  Assembly  is  Republican  again,  it  is  true 
—  made  so  by  Smith's  treachery --but  among 


A  PROGRESSIVE  GOVERNOR         213 

the  Republicans  are  enough  progressive  men  to' 
sustain  what  has  been  done  and  probably  to 
support  new  measures  of  public  good.  In  a 
statement  issued  immediately  after  the  election, 
Governor  Wilson  called  upon  them  in  the  name 
of  the  pledges  of  their  own  platform,  to  co 
operate  in  "reforms  planned  in  the  interest  of 
the  whole  state  which  we  are  sworn  to  serve." 


•> 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    PRESIDENCY    LOOMS    UP 

TTN  THE  spring  of  1911  it  became  evident 
that  a  sentiment  looking  toward  Mr. 

-•^  Wilson's  nomination  for  the  Presidency 
as  abroad  in  the  nation.  The  suggestion  had 
been  made  long  ago  —  several  years  ago  —  but 
it  had  had  no  more  than  faint  interest  till  the 
Governor's  masterful  grapple  with  the  difficul 
ties  of  practical  politics  at  the  New  Jersey  capital 
had  focused  country-wide  attention  upon  him, 
and  led  to  the  general  discovery  of  his  grasp  of 
political  problems,  the  vigor  and  originality  of 
his  thought,  and  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
government  by  the  people.  In  all  parts  of  the 
Union,  from  its  populous  Eastern  cities  to  re 
mote  corners  of  the  West,  people  seemed  sud 
denly  to  become  aware  that  there  was  a  man 
named  Wilson  who  looked  more  like  a  great 
man  than  any  who  had  been  seen  of  late  days. 

214 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       215 

Letters  began  coming  into  Trenton  and  Prince 
ton  until  they  could  no  longer  be  read,  not  to 
speak  of  being  answered;  newspaper  clippings 
by  the  bushel  basket. 

The  time  soon  came  when  invitations  to 
speak  in  cities  clamorous  to  see  and  hear  grew 
so  insistent  that  it  would  have  been  vain  pride 
longer  to  disregard  them.  A  few  friends  took 
it  upon  themselves  to  arrange  an  itinerary  among 
some  of  the  cities  that  wanted  to  see  New  Jer 
sey's  Governor,  and  he  put  himself  in  their 
hands  to  the  extent  of  agreeing  to  get  on  a  train 
with  the  itinerary  in  his  pocket  and  fare  forth 
toward  the  nearest  point  at  least. 

Before  he  returned  he  had  traveled  8,000 
miles,  made  twenty-five  speeches,  addressed 
thousands  of  people,  and  been  acclaimed  in 
eight  states  as  the  next  President.  Stopping 
to  rest  over-night  at  Washington,  as  he  neared 
home,  the  hotel  to  which  he  went  was  besieged 
by  Senators  and  Representatives  come  to  make, 
or  renew,  acquaintance  with  the  man  about 
whom  the  whole  country  was  talking. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  it.     On  his  Western 


216  WOODROW  WILSON 

journey  Mr.  Wilson  had  replied  to  all  questions 
by  saying  that  the  Presidency  was  too  big  a 
/  thing  for  any  man  to  set  about  to  capture,  as  it 
(  was  too  big  for  any  man  to  refuse.  Now,  how 
ever,  there  set  in  a  spontaneous  movement 
which  over-nigh^  made  him  a  candidate,  willy- 
nilly,  and  which  within  a  few  weeks  had  put  his 
name  apparently  ahead  of  all  others  in  popular 
favor  —  for  the  movement  was  distinctly  a 
movement  rather  of  citizens  than  of  politicians, 
rather  of  the  people  than  of  party  leaders.  To 
answer  the  constant  demands  of  the  newspapers 
for  information,  a  press  bureau  was  established, 
its  modest  expenses  met  by  the  chipping-in  of 
personal  friends,  many  of  them  Prince tonians. 
The  state  committee  of  his  party  —  which  had 
thrown  off  the  old  domination  and  was  now  a 
group  of  freed  and  enthusiastic  men  —  an 
nounced  New  Jersey's  Governor  as  her  choice 
for  the  Presidency  and  opened  headquarters  in 
Trenton  to  promote  his  nomination. 

Early  in  January,  1912,  Governor  Wilson  was 
present  as  a  guest  at  the  Jackson  Day  banquet, 
attended  by  all  the  members  of  the  Democratic 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       217 

National  Committee  and  the  most  prominent\ 
men  of  the  party  from  all  over  the  country,     \ 
gathered  in  Washington;  and  there  made  an     / 
address  so  commanding  in  power  that  he  fairly  / 
swept  the  800  off  their  feet  with  the  vision  of     j 
duty    and    opportunity    which    beckoned    the    C 
party  of  the  people  in  this  hour  of  national  crisis. 

From  that  day  Mr.  Wilson's  life  has  been  / 
lived  in  the  full  light  of  publicity.  The  press 
has  given  a  daily  record  of  his  acts  and  words 
-  and  has  brought  to  an  end  the  work  of  this 
biography,  whose  purpose  it  has  been  to  trace 
the  course  of  not  widely  known  events  which,  in 
ways  unusual  in  our  political  history,  has  singu 
larly  equipped  Woodrow  Wilson  for  a  chief  part 
in  the  political  life  of  the  nation. 

So  brief  a  narrative  as  this  could  reveal  but 
imperfectly  the  personality  whose  development 
it  essayed  to  trace;  nor  could  any  assessment  of 
it,  in  closing,  do  -much  to  remedy  the  imper 
fection.  Some  few  matters  of  fact  might  be 
added  a  little  to  round  out  the  picture: 

Mr.  Wilson's  face,  photographed  in  repose,  is 


218  WOODROW  WILSON 

familiar;  but  it  is  not  the  same  face,  animated; 
his  photographs  do  not  show  the  man  whom  his 
friends  know.  The  lines  of  sadness  which  mark 
the  photographs  disappear  in  conversation,  in 
public  speech.  A  suffusion  of  kindliness  over 
flows  his  countenance  the  moment  his  attention 
is  drawn;  swift  play  of  expression  marks  the 
interest  with  which  he  listens.  His  laugh,  like 
that  of  the  reprobate  whom  Mark  Twain  en- 

/  gaged   to   applaud   during  his  first  lecture,   is 

/  hung  on  a  hair-trigger.  He  resents  the  sug 
gestion  that  his  profile  is  remarkably  like  that  of 

\Joseph  Chamberlain  as  that  British  statesman 
/(whom  he  despises)  was  in  after  days,  but  it  is. 

/  Mr.  Wilson  is  of  good  height,  sturdily  built, 
with  square  shoulders;  he  stands  erect  and  on  his 
feet.  If  you  want  mannerisms,  you  note  that 
his  hands  seek  his  trousers  pockets,  that  he 
changes  his  glasses  with  much  care  when  he 
\looks  down  at  a  document  or  up  from  it;  that 
every  time  he  has  used  his  pen  he  wipes  it  care- 
fidly  with  a  cloth  taken  from  a  drawer,  into 
whie]i  he  painstakingly  replaces  it,  closing  the 
drawer.  There  is  a  certain  trained  precision  of 


>; 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       219 

habit  in  matters  of  routine  —  and  a  free  spon 
taneity  in  others.     There  would  be  a  gray  grim- 
ness  about  him  except  for  the  pocketed  hands,  a 
frequent  sunburst  of  a  smile,  and  a  voice  like 
music.     You  would  learn,  if  you  watched  him  an 
hour  or  two,  that  a  man  with  a  stiff  jaw  and  a 
sensitive  mouth  is  pretty  sure  to  be  master  in 
any  situation.     Governor  Wilson  is  a  man  of 
positive  opinion,  relieved  by  an  eager  sense  of 
humor.     He  moves  and  speaks  with  unfailing 
poise,  with  good-natured  certainty  of  himself. 
The  prime  thing  is  that  he  is  real  —  real 
through,  from  top  to  bottom.     There  isn't 
sham  anywhere  in  his  neighborhood.     His  mind/ 
is  constitutionally  incapable  of  tolerating  un 
reality  —  it  revolts  against  it  like  a  nauseated 
stomach.     Another  thing  is  that  he  is  good- 
humored.     He  is  chock-full  of  energy;  he  likes ^\ 
action,  hugely,  though  he  did  remark  at  the  J 
end  of  one  exciting  day:     "After  all,  life  doesn't   j 
consist  in  eternally  running  to  a  fire!"     Con-  / 
versation  with  him  is  a  delight;  his  talk  is  rich 
in    allusion,    illustrated    from    broad    personal 
acquaintance,  marked  by  a  wide-ranging  sweep 


220  WOODROW  WILSON 

of  interest  and  thought.     Yet  he  likes  a  good 
story  and  an  occasional  emphatic  word. 
/   It   might  be   mentioned   that   Mr.   Wilson's 
/  family  consists  of  his  wife  and  three  daughters : 
X^argaret,    Jessie,    and    Eleanor.     New    Jersey 
having  no  residence  for  its  executive  head,  the 
Governor  continues  to  reside  at  Princeton,  in  a 
pretty  house  on  a  quiet  street.     Trenton  is  but 
eleven  miles  distant,  and  he  is  at  his  desk  in  the 
State  House  much  more  than  any  of  his  pred 
ecessors  ever  was. 

There,  in  the  copper-domed  Capitol,  his  re 
ception-room  is  constantly  filled  with  visitors; 
he  works,  sees  callers,  and  holds  conferences  in 
an  inner  room  -  -  the  door,  however,  to  which 
stands  always  open.  Be  the  weather  cold  or 
not,  any  one  can  walk,  without  touching  a  door 
knob,  from  the  street  into  the  Governor's 
inner  room. 

It  is  a  pleasant  enough  room,  this  inner  office, 
looking  out  over  the  river;  none  too  luxuriously 
furnished  in  light  wood,  with  a  mahogany  tall- 
clock  in  a  corner,  a  calendar  with  an  advertise 
ment  on  it  on  the  wall,  a  tiny  brass  fireplace, 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       221 

and  mantel  supporting  a  bronze  Washington  in 
a  Roman  toga  and  a  Lincoln  in  a  piratical 
cloak.  Solemn  portraits  of  former  Governors 
hang  in  melancholy  rows  here  and  on  every 
available  wall  of  the  executive  wing  of  the 
building. 

Governor  Wilson  is  an  indefatigable  worker, 
used  to  long  hours  at  the  desk.  During  his 
first  year  in  office  he  amazed  the  State  House. 
It  was  bad  enough  in  the  spring,  but  worse  when 
summer  came  and  the  Governor  was  still  to  be 
found  during  the  hottest  weather  constantly  at 
the  Capitol,  in  the  burning  city.  Passersby  on 
the  street  caught  glimpses  of  the  Governor  in  his 
shirt-sleeves  working  hard  way  into  the  night. 
On  one  of  the  hottest  nights  in  July  Adjutant- 
General  Sadler,  passing  about  midnight  in  his 
automobile,  saw  the  Governor's  light  burning; 
dismounting  and  making  his  way  into  the  room, 
he  presented  himself  as  a  representative  of  the 
State  House  Union,  complaining  that  members 
had  no  right  to  work  overtime,  and  tried  his  best 
to  take  the  worker  out  for  a  motor-ride  in  the 
moonlit  night.  But  it  was  no  go.  There  was 


222  WOODROW  WILSON 

work  to  be  done,  so  the  Governor  worked  on 
alone  and  toward  morning  made  his  way  to  the 
little  room  in  the  Hotel  Sterling  which  he  oc 
cupied  when  detained  in  the  city. 

This  biography  has  found  no  time  to  dwell, 
as  it  would  like  to  have  dwelt,  on  many  of  the 
enlarging  and  enriching,  though  undramatic, 
events  of  the  scholar's  life:  on  holidays  in 
Europe;  on  the  preparation  for  the  writing  of 
books,  such  as  the  "Life  of  George  Washington" 
and  the  monumental  "  History  of  the  American 
People." 

It  could  not  tell  of  the  happiness  of  his  family 
life.  It  has  not  hinted  at  his  shyness,  that  love 
of  retirement,  inherited  with  the  strain  of  his 
mother's  blood,  which  had  to  be  overcome,  with 
agonizing,  before  he  could  commit  himself  to 
the  path  of  public  life,  and  which  still  makes 
the  knocking  at  a  strange  door  or  the  reception 
of  a  new  caller  a  real,  though  never  a  percep 
tible,  effort. 

It  has  not  told  of  his  passion  for  crowds,  of 
his  fondest  habit  —  the  stealing  off  somewhere 
>o  move,  unknown,  among  big  throngs,  and  to 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       223 

drink  in,  in  silence,  the  sense  of  human  striving, 
to  look  into  the  faces  of  multitudes  and  listen 
to  their  voices,  one  to  another;  to  feel  the  heart 
beat  of  men,  as  they  go  about  life's  business  or 
its  pleasures. 

It  is  a  rare  and  an  arresting  combination  of 
traits  that  this  man  presents.  Perhaps  nothing 
sums  it  up  more  vividly  than  this:  he  reads 
Greek,  and  he  writes  —  short-hand.  That  was 
one  of  the  first  things  that  amazed  the  people  at 
Trenton  —  the  old-timers  who  deemed  them 
selves  the  only  "practical"  politicians.  But 
every  day  for  a  year  was  a  further  amazement 
to  them.  They  found  in  this  strange  newcomer 
a  man  who  didn't  believe  that  a  good  cause 
was  rendered  any  less  likely  to  succeed  by  the 
employment  in  its  behalf  of  the  carnal  weapons 
of  practical  politics  —  a  man  who  said:  "Even 
a  reformer  need  not  be  a  fool." 

A  new  era  was  ushered  in  when  this  quiet  gen 
tleman  who  had  just  emerged  from  the  delectable 
groves  of  Princeton's  academy,  his  garments 
odorous  with  the  vapors  of  Parnassus,  his  lips  wet 
with  the  waters  of  Helicon  —  this  long-haired 


224  WOODROW  WILSON 

bookworm  of  a  professor  who  had  just  laid  his 
spectacles  on  his  dictionary,  came  down  to  the 
Trenton  State  House  and  "licked  the  gang  to  a 
frazzle."  It  appeared  that  he  did  know  the 
difference  between  a  seminar  and  a  caucus,  a 
syllabus  and  a  New  Jersey  corporation  —  that 
he  did  know  Hoboken  and  Camden  politics 
pretty  nearly  as  well  as  he  did  his  Burke  and  his 
agehot;  and  that,  able  to  write  a  book  on 
Constitutional  Government,"  he  was  just  as 
able  to  handle  a  Governor's  job  constitution 
ally  or  otherwise,  according  to  your  view  of  the 
constitution. 

As  to  constitutions,  he  does  not  have  for  them 
altogether  that  kind  of  regard  which  the  super 
stitious  have  for  a  fetich.  They  do  say  that  he 
was  once  so  irreverent  as  to  remark  of  some  of 
the  provisions  of  a  certain  ancient  document, 
>l  They're  outgrown,  that's  all.  If  you  button 
them  over  the  belly,  they  split  up  the  back!" 
Yet  no  man  could  be  more  jealous  of  the  prin 
ciples  of  which  the  Constitution  is  the  expression. 
/  Of  his  manner  of  public  speech,  something  more 
(Bought  to  be  told.  With  the  advent  of  Woodrow 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP 

Wilson  on  the  political  stage  came  a  new  type 
of  man  and  a  new  type  of  oratory.  Mr.  Wilson 
has  long  been  known  as  an  exquisite  master  of 
English  prose.  He  speaks  as  he  writes  —  with 
a  trained  and  skilful  handling  of  the  resources  of 
the  language,  a  sureness,  an  accuracy,  a  power,,' 
and  a  delicacy  surpassing  anything  ever  before/ 
heard  on  the  political  platform  in  America.  It 
was  felt  by  some  of  his  friends  that  Mr.  Wilson's 
classical  habit  of  language  would  militate  against 
his  success  as  a  politician  —  it  was  felt  to  be  a 
matter  of  extreme  doubt  whether  he  could  use 
language  understanded  of  the  people.  The  first 
appearance  of  the  candidate  for  the  Jersey  gover 
norship  dissipated  these  doubts.  Mr.  Wilson 
knew  how  to  talk  to  the  people,  knew  how  to 
win  them.  He  changed  his  manner  very  little, 
never  stooping,  as  if  he  had  to,  to  make  the 
people  understand.  No  matter  where  or  before 
what  sort  of  audience  he  spoke,  his  speeches  were 
on  a  high  plane,  but  they  were  so  clear,  so  def 
inite,  that  every  man  understood  and  wondered 
why  he  had  not  thought  of  that  himself. 

Governor  Wilson  is  not  only  the  most  intel- 


226  WOODROW  WILSON 

lectual  speaker  that  this  generation  has  seen  on 
the  stump;  he  is  the  most  engaging.  A  friendly 
smile  is  almost  always  on  his  face  —  always  in 
beginning,  at  any  rate.  His  words  come  with 
vigor,  but  with  a  gentle  good-nature,  too  —  not  a 
good-natured  tolerance  of  the  ills  he  is  opposing, 
but  a  good-natured  confidence  that  they  will 
soon  be  overthrown.  A  serene  faith  in  the  out 
come  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  Wilson's 
attitude;  he  is  an  optimist,  and  his  speeches 
have  the  invigorating  charm  and  power  of  a  call 
to  join  an  army  which  is  marching  to  glorious 
and  certain  victory. 

Mr.  Wilson  is  a  great  story-teller  —  in  private 
he  keeps  his  friends  in  hours-long  gales  of 
laughter;  he  uses  simple  words  and  strong  words, 
but  seldom  slang.  He  loves  nonsense  verse  and 
limericks,  and  often  reels  them  off  while  he  is 
getting  acquainted  with  his  audience  —  for  he 
talks  with  an  audience,  not  to  it.  Mr.  Wilson, 
as  has  been  said,  has  a  strongly  individual  face; 
some  people  would  call  him  homely.  He  was 
under  no  illusion  about  that  matter  himself; 
he  told  the  people  during  his  campaign  for  the 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       227 

governorship  that  they  might  as  well  prepare 
themselves  for  a  busy  governor,  for  the  Lord 
never  intended  him  to  be  ornamental.  'Yes," 
he  remarked  once, 

"For  beauty  I  am  not  a  star; 

There  are  others  handsomer,  far;  ^J^. > 

But  my  face  —  I  don't  mind  it,      '«- 

For  I  am  behind  it; 
'Tis  the  people  in  front  that  I  jar!" 

Burke  is  Mr.  Wilson's  favorite  orator  and,  to 
some  degree,  has  been  his  model.  No  man  in 
our  time  has  carried  the  discussion  of  public 
questions  to  so  high  a  level  of  thought;  his  argu 
ments  and  appeals  move  in  the  higher  airs. 
The  members  of  a  Democratic  Club  at  an  an 
nual  dinner  are  at  first  a  little  puzzled  to  listen  to 
an  exposition  such  as  Origen,  Augustine,  or 
Hegel  might  make  of  the  philosophical  nature  of 
liberty,  namely,  that  it  consists  in  the  adjust 
ment  of  the  parts  of  a  harmonious  whole.  But 
bewilderment  soon  passes  into  the  conviction 
at  least  that  they  are  listening  to  a  man  who  has 
thought  things  out;  and  when  he  comes  to  speak 
of  the  matters  whereof  they  know,  and  speaks  in 


228  WOODROW  WILSON 

a  logic  perfect  and  clear  and  onward  moving 
-toward  conclusions  which  at  last  shine  out 
white-hot  in  the  fire  of  moral  conviction,  it  is 
with  a  tempest  of  enthusiasm  that  they  shout 
their  understanding.  Those  were  truly  re 
markable  effects  that  were  provoked  during  the 
campaign  all  over  New  Jersey  and  that  have 
been  accomplished  in  cities  elsewhere  since,  by 
the  prophet-like  utterances  of  this  foe  of  priv 
ilege,  this  leader  of  revolt  against  the  usurpers 
of  the  people's  power. 

He  speaks  without  notes.  His  voice  is  full, 
rich,  and  far-carrying.  He  gestures  freely. 
His  utterance  flows  easily  in  clean-cut  channels, 
and  goes  home  in  clear,  strong  sentences.  He 
is  a  master  of  statement;  his  brain  works  as  if 
it  had  been  taken  out,  cleaned,  and  oiled  that 
day.  It  was  no  exceptional  testimonial  that 
was  given  by  a  laborer  of  Cartaret,  N.  J.,  who 
went  out  of  the  hall  saying,  "He  handed  out  a 
cracker  jack  line  of  talk,  all  right.' 

/      That  he  enjoys  it,  is  clear.     A  man  in  the 
audience  at  Lakewood  called  out,  "Oh!  you're 

V  only  an  amateur  politican!" 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       229 

"Yes,  that  is  too  bad,  isn't  it!  But  I  have 
one  satisfaction:  a  professional  plays  the  game, 
you  know,  because  it  pays  him.  An  amateur 
plays  the  game  because  he  loves  to  play  it,  to  win 
it  if  he  can  by  fair  means  in  a  fair  field,  before 
the  eyes  of  all  men.  I'm  afraid  I'm  only  an 
amateur.  But  I'm  having  a  most  interesting 
time  of  it!" 

This  is  the  way  he  speaks: 

"Back  of  all  reform,  lies  the  means  of  getting  it.  Back 
of  the  question  what  you  want,  is  the  question  how  are  you 
going  to  get  it.  We  are  all  pretty  well  agreed,  I  take  it, 
that  certain  reforms  are  needed.  But  we  find  that  the 
first  necessary  reform  is  one  that  will  render  us  able  to  get 
reform." 

"We  have  been  calling  our  Government  a  Republic 
and  we  have  been  living  under  the  delusion  that  it  is  a 
representative  government.  That  is  the  theory.  But  the 
fact  is  that  we  are  not  living  under  a  representative  gov 
ernment;  we  are  living  under  a  government  of  party  bosses 
who  in  secret  conference  and  for  their  private  ends  deter 
mine  what  we  shall  and  shall  not  have.  The  first,  the 
immediate  thing  that  we  have  got  to  do  is  to  restore  repre 
sentative  government.  There  has  got  to  be  a  popular  re 
bellion  for  the  reconquest  and  reassumption  by  the  people 


230  WOODROW  WILSON 

of  the  rights  of  the  people,  too  long  surrendered.  We 
have  got  to  revolutionze  our  political  machinery,  first  of 
all.  I  am  a  radical,  and  the  first  element  of  my  radical 
ism  is,  let's  get  at  the  root  of  the  whole  thing  and  resume 
popular  government.  Let's  make  possible  the  access  of 
the  people  to  the  execution  of  their  purposes" 

"  I  tell  you  the  people  of  this  state  and  this  country  are 
determined  at  last  to  take  over  the  control  of  their  own 
politics.  We  are  going  to  cut  down  the  jungle  in  which 
corruption  lurks.  We  are  going  to  drag  things  into  the 
light,  break  down  private  understandings  and  force  them 
to  be  public  understandings.  We  mean  to  have  the  kind 
of  government  we  thought  we  had." 

" .  .  .  It  is  time  that  we  served  notice  on  the  men 
who  have  grown  up  in  the  possession  of  privileges  and 
bounties,  that  the  existing  order  of  things  is  to  be  changed. 
It  is  only  fair  that  we  warn  them,  for  they  should  have 
time  to  adjust  themselves  to  the  change;  but  the  change 
must  come,  nevertheless.  And  this  change  is  not  a 
revolution,  let  it  be  understood  at  once.  It  is  merely  a 
restoration.  .  .  .  That  is  what  the  people  of  New 
Jersey  have  meant  as  they  have  flocked  out,  rain  or  shine, 
not  to  follow  the  Democratic  party  —  we  have  stopped 
thinking  about  parties  —  to  follow  what  they  now  know 
as  the  Democratic  idea,  the  idea  that  the  people  are  at  last 
to  be  served." 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       231 

"Do  you  know  what  the  American  people  are  waiting 
for,  gentlemen?  They  are  waiting  to  have  their  politics 
utterly  simplified.  They  are  realizing  that  our  politics 
are  full  of  secret  conferences,  that  there  are  private  ar 
rangements,  and  they  do  not  understand  it.  They  want 
to  concentrate  their  force  somewhere.  They  are  like  an 
unorganized  army  saying  the  thing  is  wrong.  Where 
shall  we  congregate?  How  shall  we  organize?  Who  are 
the  captains?  Where  are  the  orders?  Which  is  the 
direction?  Where  are  the  instruments  of  government? 
That  is  what  they  are  waiting  for." 

"It  is  an  opportunity,  and  it  is  a  terrible  opportunity. 
Don't  you  know  that  some  man  without  conscience,  who 
did  not  care  for  the  nation,  could  put  this  country  into  a 
flame?  Don't  you  know  that  the  people  of  this  country 
from  one  end  to  the  other  all  believe  that  something  is 
wrong?  What  an  opportunity  it  would  be  for  some  man 
without  conscience,  but  with  power,  to  spring  up  and  say: 
'This  is  the  way:  follow  me*  and  lead  them  in  paths  of 
destruction.  How  terrible  it  would  be!"  • 

".  .  .  I  am  accused  of  being  a  radical.  If  to  seek 
to  go  to  the  root  is  to  be  a  radical,  a  radical  I  am.  After 
all,  everything  that  flowers  in  beauty  in  the  air  of  heaven 
draws  its  fairness,  its  vigor,  from  its  roots.  Nothing  liv 
ing  can  blossom  into  fruitage  unless  through  nourishing 
stalks  deep-planted  in  the  common  soil.  Up  from  that 


WOODROW  WILSON 

soil,  up  from  the  silent  bosom  of  the  earth,  rise  the  currents 
of  life  and  energy.  Up  from  the  common  soil,  up  from  the 
quiet  heart  of  the  people,  rise  joyously  to-day  streams  of 
hope  and  determination  bound  to  renew  the  face  of  the 
earth  in  glory. 

"I  tell  you  the  so-called  radicalism  of  our  times  is 
simply  the  effort  of  nature  to  release  the  generous  energies 
of  our  people.  This  great  American  people  is  at  bottom 
just,  virtuous,  and  hopeful;  the  roots  of  its  being  are  in  the 
soil  of  what  is  lovely,  pure,  and  of  good  report;  and  the 
need  of  the  hour  is  just  that  radicalism  that  will  clear  a 
way  for  the  realization  of  the  aspirations  of  a  sturdy  race/' 

No  one  can  listen  to  Woodrow  Wilson  and 
see  the  emotions  of  the  audiences  of  earnest  men 
who  hang  upon  his  words,  without  feeling  that 
he  is  witnessing  the  beginning  of  a  political 
revolution,  and  that  its  prophet  and  captain 
stands  before  him.  This  is  a  new  language  - 
but  one  for  which  the  people  have  an  instinctive, 
Pentecostal  understanding. 

It  is  surely  an  interesting  prospect  held  out 
by  this  taking  of  the  centre  of  the  stage  of 
national  politics  by  a  man  made  up  of  the  com 
bination  of  qualities  which  Woodrow  W7ilson 
possesses.  It  is  the  combination  of  the  gentle- 


THE  PRESIDENCY  LOOMS  UP       233 

man  and  scholar  —  and  the  practical  politican. 
Imagine  a  student  of  government  one  of  the  most 
eminent  that  America  has  produced;  a  man  of. 
rich  literary  and  ethical  culture;  of  the  fine 
fibre  and  mellow  spirit  that  our  ancient  uni 
versities  still  occasionally  shelter  and  develop;  a 
man  of  humanity,  with  a  heart  not  unvisited 
by  emotions  —  who  is  yet  able  to  go  into  the 
sordid  battle  of  politics,  face  the  "mean  knights" 
like  a  Lancelot,  keep  his  temper,  crack  his  joke, 
and  win.  Imagine  a  type  of  culture  in  its  finest 
flower,  and  then  add  to  his  endowment,  tact, 
method,  efficiency,  a  shrewd  knowledge  of  men, 
a  sense  of  humor,  a  passion  for  facts,  a  zest  for) 
constructive  wrork,  and  an  instinct  for  leader 
ship  —  and  you  begin  to  get  something  like  si 
picture  of  the  remarkable  man  whose  history, 
now  but  entered  upon,  this  biography  has  so 
inadequately  narrated,  and  whose  personality  it 
has  so  imperfectly  portrayed. 

THE   END 


-I* 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


JAN     719S&25 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


LD  21A-60m-4,'64 
(E4555sJO)476B 


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' 


